"Welcome to the Nati" the nice bus driver said. The journey from Indianapolis to Cincinnati was fairly short and uneventful and I got to the hotel by lunch time. Yes, a hotel, because there was no cheap accommodation in town so I was 'forced' to stay at the Ramada. Travelling can be hard on you!

It was incredibly sunny and warm as I explored downtown. I decided to spend the afternoon of my first day across the river so I crossed the bridge that was the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge and crossed the state line into Kentucky.

The town at the end of the bridge was Covington. I didn't have a map of this place so I tried following my nose to some kind of downtown area. Either my sense of direction-smell is playing up or there was no good downtown. I kept passing low-end shops (grocery stores with bars on the windows, pawn shops, tattoo parlours and the like) so I turned back to the river. I checked my guide book later on and I should have headed southwest instead of south into the Mainstrasse Village area. Usually walking around under my own steam produces more interesting results than the guide book but in this case I let myself down.

I did see something amusing though - a car with a signwriten slogan on the back saying "I'm a Republican because everyone can't be on welfare". Of course the 'car' in question was an enormous Ford truck. I chuckled slightly at the thought and mentally replied thinking "No, buddy, the reason you're a Republican is because your grammar sucks! You mean you're a Republican because 'not everyone can be on welfare'". (This anecdote paid for by the Obama for President campaign.)

To make the best of the situation I crossed over a bridge into the adjacent town of Newport, Kentucky. That was more successful and I found a decent set of shops although I had to walk over a mile into town and back out again before I found them right by the river. As I sat and relaxed by the river at 5pm sipping on an iced coffee and listening to some music from a nearby shop an electronic sign on the far side back in Cincinnati told me it was 80 degrees. Nice.

The following day the weather was not as kind. I started out going into the Over-the-Rhine neighbourhood that the guide book says is very nice and retains traces of its Germanic influences. Today I'd say it more resembles Harlem. The shops had the same look as those in Covington and none of them made me want to stop for lunch. I didn't want to draw any more attention to myself by stopping to check my map and I remembered the guide book saying the neighbourhood backed onto some dodgy areas so I did a U-turn down a parallel street and made a beeline for downtown. I caught sight of my reflection in a shop window and realised how much I must stand out with my white skin, shirt and sunglasses - I couldn't do much about the first two but since the sun had gone behind a cloud I ditched the shades. I hoped I looked less like the FBI doing bad undercover surveillance.

I did not realise before I got here that there is such a thing as Cincinnati Chili. I had some for lunch and it was good. In the afternoon I dropped into the National Underground Railroad Museum on the riverside. I found it very interesting and spent three hours going around it. For those who don't know, the underground railroad was the network of people back in slavery times who helped enslaved blacks reach the safety of Canada or other safe areas. The location of Cincinnati was important because it is in the free state of Ohio and sits across the river from the former slave state of Kentucky so it was right on the frontline.

The weather had been getting progressively worse during the day and by the time I left the museum it was pouring with rain. Fortunately I'd seen the weather forecast the night before which reported a 40% of precipitation so I had packed my coat.

I found Cincinnati quite nice - it looked like a good place to work and go out for lunch. But that was it. It didn't have the appeal to me that Indianapolis did, which remains the standout example of a nice, well-rounded downtown area. One thing Cincinnati had in common with it though was a feeling of safety. Its location was handy to me, allowing me to visit two states on one stop.

My journey continues into the Virginias next.