First time in Atlanta - staying in Buckhead - need help!

Myself and a co-worker are travelling down to Atlanta next week - we arrive on Apr 22nd and leave April 28th in the evening.

We have all day Sunday, Thursday afternoon and evening, and most of the day Friday to do some shopping and sight-seeing.

We are staying at the Doubletree in Buckhead.

We plan to do the CNN tour, go to the acquarium and do some shopping.

Is CNN and the acquarium anywhere near each other? How easy will it be to take public transportation from our hotel to each of these places?

Thanks.

First time in Atlanta - staying in Buckhead - need help!

Your hotel is within very easy walking distance of the Buckhead Marta station, which is less than a tenth of a mile northeast on Peachtree Road. From there, you can take the Marta train soutbound to the Omni/Georgia Dome/GWCC/CNN Center stop. Visit www.itsmarta.com for a MARTA rail map. The aquarium is about a block from CNN Center. Both are huge, well-marked buildings (CNN Center looks like something in Times Square) and you should have no trouble spotting them. MARTA is $1.75 per trip.

First time in Atlanta - staying in Buckhead - need help!

Actually you take the MARTA rail south to Five Points Station and change over to the westbound train one level up and go to the first stop, which is the CNN/Georgia Dome/Phillips/Georgia World Congress center station. CNN and the Georgia Aquarium are close to each other as is Centennial Olympic Park. Too bad you%26#39;re not here today. It%26#39;s 80 F, brilliant blue sky, white puffy clouds and everything is in bloom. Atlanta in the Spring is one of the prettiest cities in the U.S.. It%26#39;s then that it actually lives up to it%26#39;s old nickname of ';The city in a forest';.

Oops. You%26#39;re right Nuke. I always forget about having to switch trains there. AGH721, there are maps on the MARTA train walls so you can keep an eye on which stop to take.

Actually, if you%26#39;re planning to go to the Aquarium first, just getting off at Five Points Station instead of changing to the westbound train and getting off at the Omni/CNN Center/GWCC stop is a slightly shorter walk, though you might not guess it unless you look carefully at a map. If you%26#39;re going to CNN Center first, then the Omni/CNN/GWCC stop makes more sense. The other advantage of walking from the Aquarium/Centennial Park area is that you see more of the downtown area, which has been much revitalized by the development of office/classroom space for Georgia State University and the conversion of many older office buildings to condos/lofts -- there%26#39;s much more vibrant street life than when I worked downtown nearly two decades ago. It almost feels like a real city (like New York, Boston, or San Francisco) unlike the rest of Atlanta, which feels like one huge suburb.

The other thing you should be aware of is the free shuttle bus service throughout the Buckhead area, which would let you easily get from your hotel or the Buckhead MARTA station to the malls and shopping areas in Buckhead. For more info, check out http://www.bucride.com .