In the interest of not getting too verbose I'll just say we stopped here in 2008 and 2009 to see the Memphis Botanical and again in 2011 to see it and the Memphis Zoo.
More so than most cities, Memphis is a city of sections each with it's own flavor and character. I broke the Memphis Botanical out to this separate page and later I'll have a page for the Zoo.
First and foremost, Memphis is a river city. Looking up river to the I-40 bridge and then down toward the sunset behind the I-55 and railroad bridges there is a good reason for their height. Between low water here in November and spring flood the water level easily changes over 40 feet.
Making the best of a necessity, the top of the levee is a wide park devoted to walkways and here a small sculpture garden. The city proper seems to be rather far in the distance because it actually is. Memphis boasts a rather good public transit system with the normal buses and these quaint trolleys available to get around.
Downtown has a lot of these older ornate building that are a joy to photograph. One of the most famous is the Peabody Hotel hosting the Peabody Ducks that parade into the fountain in the morning and return to their penthouse suite in the evening. The hotel site link above has more details.
And of course the most famous area in Memphis is Beale Street with food and bars, music and bars, fun and bars, bars and bars. I don't do smoke well so we kept to the day tour and avoided the evening parties.