Ididn’t expect to fall for Lexington so hard. The second-largest Kentucky city wasn’t even really on my radar, aside from its reputation for horses and bourbon. How was I to know that its laid-back Southern charm and progressive cultural offerings would remind me so thoroughly of pre-“It City” Nashville? By the time my trip was over, I was seriously contemplating relocation.

Admittedly, my reverie might have been influenced by timing. I took a weekend visit with my husband and our 8-year-old, and our trip coincided with June’s nationwide anti-fascist “No Kings” protests , so as I entered the city I felt comforted by a kind of wide-eyed political optimism that is pretty hard to come by these days. The late-springtime weather was perfectly temperate, which never hurts, and there were hors

See Full Page