Birmingham, a major metropolitan area of more than 900,000 people, seems to set the pace for the entire state. Once contained in just a valley amid the Appalachian foothills, the city has sprawled in all directions.

Among the sites to visit in the city are Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Sloss Furnaces, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Arlington, Birmingham’s only remaining antebellum home. The McWane Center, a children’s hands-on museum, the Birmingham Zoo, the Southern Museum of Flight and Visionland, a growing new amusement park, all offer fun for every member of the family.

Once a city that was built on steel, Birmingham now is a city of medicine. The University of Alabama in Birmingham Medical Center and other medical facilities in Birmingham bring doctors and patients from throughout the world to this part of Alabama.

The city is overlooked by a statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of the forge. The statue, which has become the city’s symbol, is the largest cast-iron statue in the world and the second largest statue in the United States.

In Gadsden, Noccalula Falls, named for an Indian princess who is said to have thrown herself over the falls rather than marry a man she didn’t love, offer a breathtaking vista as well as a story of lost romance.

Romance is said to be one of the reasons covered bridges were invented -- they gave sweethearts a place to steal an unseen kiss. This part of the state has one of the highest concentrations of this symbol of a bygone era. Gilliland-Reese Covered Bridge is near the falls. Coldwater Creek Covered Bridge is in Oxford. Cullman has Clarkson Covered Bridge. In Blount County, Alabama’s Covered Bridge Capital, visitors can see Horton Mill Bridge (said to be the highest above water in the United States), Swann Bridge and Easley Bridge, the county’s oldest surviving covered bridge.

This part of the state is home to a number of interesting museums. The Anniston Museum of Natural History is one of the state’s finest, designed for visitors of all ages and housing everything from bird eggs to mummies. An outdoor museum of sorts, Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman is a collection of miniature scenes built by one of the monks who resided at the monastery there. The state salutes one of its celebrities here as well with a permanent collection of Jim Nabors’ memorabilia in his hometown of Sylacauga.