Penola is famour for the Mary MacKillop Museum and Petticoat Lane where a number of very old single storey cottages have been maintained. Some are still lived in and others have been purchased by the National Trust and can be visited.
The Mary MacKillop Centre includes the schoolroom where she first taught children in 1866 and where she and Fr Julian Tennison Woods co-founded the Institute of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
Sharam Cottage was built in 1850 and is reputed to have been the first house in Penola. This initial building consisted of two rooms and was built without nails. A second, larger cottage, comprising a sitting room and three bedrooms, was built next door in the 1860s.
The Coonawarra wineries are just north of Penola so plenty to take in there as well.