Trip to Cleveland + a few pictures

[colin]

I had never been to Ohio, so thought I'd start my Great Lakes trip in Cleveland by taking the train from Chicago where I had stayed with a friend.

I ended absolutely loving Cleveland. It's a beautiful town, the architecture is spectacular, it's very urban and everyone I interfaced with was incredibly nice. Also, I got down to Cuyahoga Valley and was impressed with how close something unspoiled like that is to the city. I ended up changing part of my trip so that I could spend an extra full day there.

I guess I just had no idea what to expect except the negative that I had heard and was just so surprised.

I spent most of my time in the eastern part of the city and suburbs (my second hotel was in Beachwood), but did make it over to Ohio City and Lakewood. Also got to ride the RTA out to the airport when I went to pick up my car and walked around quite a bit Downtown the first day (I arrived at 6:30 on the train and wasn't able to check in to the hotel until 9:30).

A few pictures of Downtown:

A few other Ohio notes:

- Mentor looks like an awful place. Did I miss something?

- Ashtabula was nice except for that enormous pile of coal by the lake

- On the way back, I went through Steubenville. Looking at it and Weirton is like night and day.

- Also went through Akron and Canton. Canton seemed especially depressing. There was some tower like "Olcott" or "Olston" that was abandoned but had signs saying it was being converted into luxury apartments.

- Akron seemed alright though, and I really liked the converted silos at Quaker Square.

[ohioaninSC]

I had never been to Ohio, so thought I'd start my Great Lakes trip in Cleveland by taking the train from Chicago where I had stayed with a friend.

I ended absolutely loving Cleveland. It's a beautiful town, the architecture is spectacular, it's very urban and everyone I interfaced with was incredibly nice. Also, I got down to Cuyahoga Valley and was impressed with how close something unspoiled like that is to the city. I ended up changing part of my trip so that I could spend an extra full day there.

I guess I just had no idea what to expect except the negative that I had heard and was just so surprised.

I spent most of my time in the eastern part of the city and suburbs (my second hotel was in Beachwood), but did make it over to Ohio City and Lakewood. Also got to ride the RTA out to the airport when I went to pick up my car and walked around quite a bit Downtown the first day (I arrived at 6:30 on the train and wasn't able to check in to the hotel until 9:30).

A few pictures of Downtown:

A few other Ohio notes:

- Mentor looks like an awful place. Did I miss something?

- Ashtabula was nice except for that enormous pile of coal by the lake

- On the way back, I went through Steubenville. Looking at it and Weirton is like night and day.

- Also went through Akron and Canton. Canton seemed especially depressing. There was some tower like "Olcott" or "Olston" that was abandoned but had signs saying it was being converted into luxury apartments.

- Akron seemed alright though, and I really liked the converted silos at Quaker Square.

[ZachariahDaMan]

Nice photos, I plan on going to Cleveland for the first time soon.