Yeah, that’s right, I said Cleveland. I decided that Candice and I needed to get out and do something new. So I spent a few hours on Friday coming up with trip ideas for Cleveland. I had tried to work something out involving Chicago on Thursday night, but the time difficulty just wasn’t coming together.
So Cleveland it was. I came up with ideas to stay overnight and ideas to just drive up for the day. In the end, we chose the day route. I think in the end it was the best choice.
We started our day, before 6:00 a.m., by driving to the West Side Market. This place is amazing. They have the North Market in Columbus which is nice, but this place is crazy. There was a huge group of fruit and veggie vendors in a long row. It made us think of the outdoor markets they show on television. Then inside there were around twice the vendors as the North Market.
They had multiple meat, bread, and pastry vendors. We ended up buying some really great, really big, loaves of bread for $8 and some fresh pasta for $1.50. The pasta was funny because we both thought it would be more. Candice even asked the girl, “Is that it?”
We tried the bread and pasta Sunday. We should have gotten more pasta!
After the market, where we only spent less than two hours, we drove around downtown Cleveland for a bit just to see the sights. Actually we were killing time before heading over to the museum district. We thought it would take more time at the market, so we were a little early.
After a few wrong turns as we tried to find the right route to the museums, we arrived to discover that a festival they were having was a much bigger deal than expected.
Saturday just happened to be the Parade the Circle event at the Cleveland Museum of Art. They have a wonderful area there with trees and a park-like setting. This festival involves agencies with activities, food vendors, and a big parade (around the circle, obviously). I knew it was a big deal, but it was waaaay bigger than I expected.
We were early so we wandered through the museum for a couple hours (it’s FREE!!) and then headed out to see the parade. The circle area was packed with people. I’m talking thousands!
The parade started at noon, but 40 minutes later and we hadn’t seen anything. We happened to be near the end and realized the delay was simply because of the nature of the parade.
Each entry had a skit or performance they were doing. It was so cool that it is hard to describe. Candice got a ton of photos and I stole a couple for here.
Two hours later (yes, the parade was that long), we headed back to the car to start home. We had thought about visiting the botanical gardens, but decided we had a pretty full day already. We stopped on the way home and had a very late lunch. In the end, we were gone for almost exactly 12 hours.
I have to say…the West Side Market and Cleveland Museum of Art ROCK!!!
