MACON , eighty miles southeast of Atlanta on I-75, where I-16 branches off to the coast, makes an attractive stop en route to Savannah, especially when its 200,000 cherry trees erupt with frothy blossoms (celebrated by a festival in the third week of March). As the highest navigable point on the Ocmulgee River , Macon was laid out in 1823 and became a major cotton port. Downtown is no longer the commercial center it once was, particularly following the arrival of the huge Macon Mall near the intersection of the two freeways, but there are signs, everywhere, of an imminent urban renaissance. Chief among these is the excellent Georgia Sports Hall of Fame at 301 Cherry St (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $6; tel 478/752-1585), a handsome, state-of-the-art facility where you'll find an interactive Paralympics exhibit alongside a celebration of the long-standing football rivalry between the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. Close by, at 355 Martin Luther King Blvd, is the restored Douglass Theatre (open for tours Mon-Sat 9am-6pm; donations; tel 478/742-2000), Macon's premier movie theatre and vaudeville hall for African Americans during the Thirties and Forties, hosting such blues greats as Ma Rainey, Ida Cox and Bessie Smith.

Macon was home to Little Richard, Otis Redding (the frankly unremarkable Otis Redding Memorial Bridge is just east of downtown) and the Allman Brothers . Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, killed here in motorcycle smashes in 1971 and 1972 respectively, are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery on Riverside Drive, the inspiration for various of the band's songs. That heritage is celebrated in the exuberant Georgia Music Hall of Fame , next door to the visitor center at Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and Walnut Street (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $8; tel 478/750-8555). A huge roster of Georgian musicians are recalled by themed interactive displays that include a Gospel chapel, a rock'n'roll soda shop and a country café. As well as admiring Redding's trademark black sweater and the B-52s' wigs, you can watch footage of Ray Charles singing Georgia on My Mind to the state legislature, inspect a photo of James Brown confiding to the pope, and listen to seventy years' worth of jukebox recordings.

One of the best of its kind anywhere, the celebratory Tubman African-American Museum , 340 Walnut St (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; $3), has a wonderful, eclectic collection, from African drums and textiles - which schoolchildren are encouraged to handle and play with - through intricate quilts, to angry, dazzling avant-garde work. There's a reading area, filled with black studies books, autobiographies and photograph collections, in a room quietly dominated by a heavy iron ankle brace and chain, which visitors are free to touch and lift. Note that the museum expects to move to larger premises sometime in 2003. A few minutes north of town at 4182 Forsyth Rd, the Museum of Arts and Sciences (Mon-Thurs & Sat 9am-5pm, Fri 9am-9pm, Sun 1-5pm; $7) is a creative ensemble of interactive exhibits geared toward kids and an indoor "natural habitat" complete with a treehouse from where you can observe animals such as antelope, leopards and deer.