Day 8: Cincinnati
We ended up staying all day in Cincinatti. That’s how these trips go. A few days ago this town wasn’t even on the go-to list! Really glad we came here. I like the place. Very interesting. Very easy to get around. We were mostly in the downtown, Over-the-Rhine, & University areas. We checked out of our first hotel thinking we’d be in Louisville that night, but we decided not to drive late into the evening and stayed in downtown Cincinnati.
Our first night in Cincinnati was at the Graduate Hotel. We’ve stayed at this chain of near to university hotels a few times now. Always nice & clean, reasonably priced and very colorful with interesting art.
Cincinnati is a town of many large murals. I can not recall seeing much regular graffiti, if any at all.
We stopped at the Findley Market. It was a great little market with all types of food and a few other shops. Most stands were interior, not exterior like this one. We have enjoyed these markets, like larger ones we’ve been to in Cleveland and Lancaster, PA.
Near the Findley Market.
We paid a visit to the Cincinnati Art Museum in the afternoon. A really strong storm blew up as we barely got in the door. This photo is the semi frantic moment as these folks were going the wrong way - trying to leave. The door kept blowing open. Luckily the storm blew over by the time we left the museum. In the evening waiters, bartenders and others we encountered had their own storm stories. In the elevator of our hotel that evening a woman asked us it we were displaced persons too? We told her we didn’t know what she was talking about, but turns out she was a local and was displaced as a 100 year old tree fell in her yard knocking out the power!
This is penguin #53/200 at the 21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati. We dropped by to take a look at the contemporary art that is always on display here. Our first visit to one of these was in Bentonville, AR on our first road trip in 2014. So we drop in when we are in a town with one of these. The penguins are their signature with many just hanging around places in the hotel. Each hotel has a different color. Bentonville’s are green. For just a quick overnight, we didn’t stay here as it was pricy this night, but we did have an excellent drink in the bar.
Downtown was quite alive for a Wednesday night, with a band playing at Fountain Square. We even got to see a police chase that felt like 12 seconds of being on a movie set. We were walking mid-block and heard sirens. Then a motorcycle goes by real fast, and then we hear louder sirens, and then the police car goes by extremely fast. They turned 2 blocks down. It is a wonder no one was hurt. I am biased against fast police chases, especially after my wife and son were hit by a bad guy fleeing police several years ago. One of our favorite cars was totaled and they didn’t even get credit for apprehension of the bad guy after his car flipped over sideways!