New Thing #177-Where Are You Going on Vacation?

When Tony and I were looking for a short vacation getaway for this week, inspiration struck my Inbox when I got an e-mail from Southwest Airlines. One of the cities they were offering a special price to was Cleveland, Ohio. I've always wanted to visit there, so today I went on a vacation that was planned based on the price of the airfare.

When we told people where we were going for vacation, most assumed that we were visiting friends or family there. Not one considered Cleveland as a "real" destination city. It ended up being a great time! Cleveland (at least the downtown area, which is where we spent most of out time) seems comparable to St. Louis:

• They have a riverfront (also a lakefront, as the Cuyahoga River empties into Lake Erie).
• They have an area (the Flats) comparable to Laclede's Landing where the original buildings have been repurposed into restaurants and night spots.
• They've renovated their Terminal Tower-which was the main railroad station-into a mall similar to Union Station.
• They have a relatively good rail transit system (the RTA) that got us most places we wanted to go.

There's also some things that make Cleveland unique. Because of the way the river twists and turns, there's many bridges in the city. Some of them jackknife or lift to allow large boats to pass under them-very cool to watch. Cleveland has more professional sports teams (along with the requisite stadiums) than St. Louis. However, much to Tony's dismay, we were not able to take in a baseball team because the Indians were out of town.