Salisbury's pleasures are slow and architectural. The downtown historic district can be walked in a couple of hours and rewards anyone with a taste for late-19th-century commercial buildings — much of Main Street looks the way it did in 1900. The Rowan Museum, the Salisbury Sculpture Show that fills the streets each summer, and a handful of restored house museums fill the rest of a comfortable day.
The harder side of Salisbury's history is preserved at the Salisbury National Cemetery, on the site of the Confederate prison camp where more than 11,000 Union soldiers died. Cheerwine — the cherry soda invented in Salisbury in 1917 — is still made here and can be sampled all over town; the festival held in mid-May is the easiest way to taste it alongside Cheerwine-glazed ribs and barbecue.