We were out of the hotel at 9am and headed to the Scioto Mile. This is a mile of the Scioto River bank that has been upgraded with a promenade, fountains and seats. At one end is Bicentennial Park which has a fountain with more than 1000 jets of water. We started in the park and then went onto the Promenade. There are lots of plants in pots, fish sculptures in fountains and seats. Every second seat is a swing seat which was really nice. Music is playing and there are chairs and tables for having lunch etc. At the other end of the mile is a full scale replica of the Santa Maria - one of Christopher Columbus's 3 ships. It is a nice area except there is some construction work going on and the river was brown and murky.
We walked back through the city streets past the law courts with the world's largest gavel, city hall and various other beautiful government buildings. One of the streets was cobblestones.
Our next stop was the Topiary Garden. The garden depicts Georges Seurat's painting called A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatte but all in topiary figures. It has been growing since 1989. Some of the figures still have a bit to grow. I don't know if they replace bits or if it hasn't ever grown. The garden looks really cool.
Next we went to the Franklin Park Conservatory. This was really interesting and we stayed for a couple of hours. There was a photographic exhibition in the conservatory called Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. This was a series of photographs showing what families from different countries around the world eat in a week. There were very traditional families from China and Greenland through to a USA family. It was interesting and slightly disturbing to see that all families except 2 had Coke or Pepsi as part of their weekly groceries.
The Conservstory was divided up into different sections. There was the desert, bonsai courtyard, tropical rainforest etc. In the Pacific Island Water Garden there were also butterflies and mirrors at the exit so you could check there were no butterflies on you before going out.
Throughout the gardens there were various glass sculptures such as pumpkins and barrels of fruit. They looked great and we were lucky enough to be there on a day there was a man doing glassblowing demos. He had just started a chalice when we got there and just had a blob of glass on his stick. It was amazing to see him transform that. He made the top section clear with a green feathered stripe through it and the bottom was blue. He explained every step of what he was doing. We stayed to watch him make the next piece which was a vase with a pink pattern through it. It was really pretty. I would have loved to buy it but there was no way I could have got it home and it wouldn't be ready until tomorrow.
This afternoon we drove through another part of town called German Village. It was full of lovely homes and all the streets were cobblestones.
We have seen some lovely parks and gardens on this trip. It is something they do very well in this part of America.
For the last couplr of hours this afternoon we went to the Columbus Zoo. We only had 2hrs before closing so it was a whirlwind tour but we saw just about everything. It is a really nice zoo and they have bears!!!! We saw an enormous grizzly bear up close. If I saw one in the wild I would prefer it to be at a distance.
The flamingos were very cool and there was even an Australian section. There were koalas, kangaroos and a lorikeet garden.
It has been another beautiful sunny day today. Tomorrow we move onto Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It is about a 5.5hr drive so we will leave pretty early in the morning.