Columbus Ohio Trip Review

Having recently retired my husband and I were thrilled to take a trip down to Columbus, Ohio and to experience all the city has to offer.

We were provided with accommodations, some meals, and admissions for activities and our excited to share our experience.

One of our first stops the second day of our trip was the Columbus Art Museum.

Children and an art museum may seem like an oxymoron; but not when it comes the  Columbus Art Museum. Their entire program is family friendly. They are doing a wonderful job making art interesting for children.  Almost every room has activities for children. The room that has tapestries exhibited on the wall has small looms for children and adults to try.

It also has a jigsaw puzzle, that is a picture of one of the tapestries, waiting to put together.

Another room has a world atlas on the wall where people are encouraged to place dots on the country where the clothes they are wearing are made.  Can you guess which country had the most dots?  Hint: It wasn’t the United States!

The theme throughout the entire museum was creativity. They have worked hard to develop a thinking art museum.  They have very few rooms devoted to one genre.  Rather, the rooms are themed.  You might find an old master next to a more recent photograph. It is up to the individual to find the connection.

This exhibit was particularly touching. 

The Columbus Museum of Art is very proud of their Docents and they should be.  We had the opportunity to see some of them interact with groups of children and they did an amazing job.  Some of them sat on the floor discussing a particular subject while others stood in front of a painting and asked questions concerning that art work.  I did not see any bored kids.  There were also Docents available for startup conversations for all visitors.

We also had the opportunity to see an outside activity in which an ice sculpture was carving a paint palette. On a 100 degree day!  The chess set outside is not to be missed.  Truly amazing.

This stop was well worth our time.  Thanks to Nancy Colvin for introducing us to the Columbus Museum of Art.

You’re in Columbus, it’s time to eat, but you are not quite sure what you want.

What do you do?  Go to the North Market.

With 136 vendors all devoted to food you are sure to find something you want. Everything is available from meat, poultry, fish, bread, pastries, produce, sweets, spices, and the utensils to cook them in.

We’ve been to these type of markets before, but they were very intimidating.  Not here.  Every vendor was friendly and willing to answer any questions we had.

What we found amazing is that this market is open seven days a week.  The city that is located near us only keeps their market open on Saturdays.  It goes to show you what a city can do when they have community support.

We were also astonished by the full kitchen where a cooking show is done and cooking classes are conducted.  It is very telling when current vendors are mostly employees of other vendors or customers.  It is also eye opening when you realize that this is the place  a lot of the chefs of the restaurants in the city shop when they want fresh items.

The North Market Development Authority is doing a good job of making sure the vendors have business.  On the first and third Sundays from May to October they bring in local artisans and crafters.  We didn’t get an opportunity to go, because we were headed back home, but they had a wine tasting extravaganza.  What two great ideas to bring in new customers!

I want to apologize in advance to all the businesses whose food we did not have opportunity to try, but if they are as good as the ones we did try, we would not have been disappointed.

The waffles from the Taste of Belgium were just what sweet tooth like ourselves love.

We tried the Watermelon Popcorn and Strawberry Lemonade Popcorn from Pam’s Market Popcorn. Highly recommended!

At Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, I had the Peach Buttermilk Ice Cream and Tired Grandpa Randy had the Sweetcorn and Blackberry.  Heaven in a cone!

At Hubert’s Polish Kitchen, the cucumber salad was out of this world. And we can’t wait for the sons-in-law to try the award winning bottle of hot sauce we bought at CaJon’s Flavor & Fire!

We want to thank Mary Martineau for the wonderful walk through of North Market and extensive information.

That evening we relaxed and enjoyed our retirement. We spent the evening enjoying some sight-seeing and looked forward to the fun plans we had for the next day.

Stay tuned for the final post in this series which will cover Pisatcia Vera, a fabulous dessert boutique, and the gorgeous Topiary Gardens.

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• Celebrating Retirement in Columbus Ohio
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