We are in the early stages of mapping out a possible three city road trip over Easter.
The tentative plan is this:
Friday, April 19: Fly into Cleveland. Arrive midday. Friday night go to Braves vs. Indians. Root actively for the Indians. Bundle up.
Saturday, April 20: Tour Cleveland. See the R&R HOF. I've heard that there are some good river tours.
Sunday, April 21: Wake up early and drive to Detroit. 1:10 game White Sox at Tigers. Dinner in Detroit.
Monday, April 22: Definitely want to hit the Motown Museum. Was thinking to take a tour of the GM plant but not sure if this is too much for one day. That afternoon, we drive to Toronto.
Tuesday, April 23: Tour Toronto. Check out the CN tower. 7:07, watch Giants at Blue Jays. Root for the Blue Jays.
Wednesday, April 24: Fly home.
6 days, three cities, three stadiums. It's a bit ambitious, but the kids are young only once, so why the hell not.
Here's where I need your help CPF, I need recommendations for food, tours, places to stay. We're open to anything and everything, but we would definitely like to get a small taste of these cities while we are there. I'll likely have my in-laws in tow, and they're not baseball fans, so most likely we'll be sending them to fancy restaurants while we pig out at the ballparks.
Road Trip!
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Centerfield
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A Boy Named Seo
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Re: Road Trip!
I have been none of those places so can't help at all, but it sounds awesome!
great googly moogly!
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Frayed Knot
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Re: Road Trip!
In the old days those used to be walking tours ... but fortunately the Cuyahoga is a bit cleaner these days so they've probably been replaced by boat rides.Centerfield wrote: ↑Mon Feb 25, 2019 11:53 am
Saturday, April 20: Tour Cleveland. I've heard that there are some good river tours.
Posting Covid-19 free since March of 2020
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Chad ochoseis
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Re: Road Trip!
Fantastic. My favorite topic - travel guides.
As far as Cleveland - since you said you'll be driving to Detroit and Toronto, I'm assuming you'll be renting a car from the airport. I think the subway ("rapid" in Cleveland parlance) is easier, but you've got a wife and kids and in-laws, so I can see the value of having a car. Fair warning - the rental car pickup in Cleveland is a pain in the ass. It's a long shuttle ride to the rental area.
I'm guessing you're staying at a hotel downtown.
Straight from the airport
You're arriving midday, so you'll be hungry. Don't go straight downtown. Stop in my neighborhood, Ohio City.
Best way to get there would be to pick up 71 north from the airport, and get off at Pearl Rd. Drive north on Pearl for about a mile through a kind of eh neighborhood. It becomes W.25th. Keep going north and you'll hit a big intersection - Lorain Avenue. To your right will be a rapid stop and, across the street, a brick building with something that looks like a bell tower. That's the West Side Market, Cleveland's public market. There's parking behind the market and metered parking on the street.
The West Side Market is fantastic. Kind of like the Reading Terminal Market in Philly if you've ever been there, but more fresh foods and fewer restauranty foods. So a lot of your time at the WSM will just be walking around. However, Maha's Falafel, at the northeast corner of the market, has excellent, quick Middle Eastern falafel and kebobs. It's not a sit-down place. If you want to sit down and eat, if the weather is nice, cross W. 25th and eat at Market Square, the little pocket park at the NW corner of W. 25th and Lorain.
If you want some beer, and also a regular sit-down lunch, go to Great Lakes, which is on Market (the little street north of Market Square). It's been around since the mid 80s, just before the brewpub craze hit hard. Beer is great, particularly the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter and the IPA (which I think is called Conway). Food is excellent as brew pubs go.
There are other good places to eat along W. 25th. North of the market, Nate's Deli (also Middle Eastern) is a very good sit-down restaurant. Ohio City Burrito - more fast foody, on the west side of W. 25th, about four blocks north of the market, is quite good.
South of Lorain, W. 25th has really developed over the past few years. I've heard Bakersfield has excellent tacos, though I haven't been there yet. A lot of people rave about Citizen Pie pizza, but I'm not nuts about it. Certainly, it's not NYC style pizza.
There are other bars along W. 25th, but I wouldn't bother with them for either beer or food, except maybe Market Garden, which is the standard go-to place if Great Lakes is crowded.
Great Lakes and Market Garden also have nice souvenir shops if you want to bring stuff back with you.
For dessert, Picadilly ice cream in the WSM is very good. Mitchell's, a few blocks north on W. 25th (with the movie theater marquee) is a small, excellent Cleveland ice cream chain. If you want to walk a couple of blocks west on Lorain, Farkas is supposed to have terrific Hungarian pastries. I'm not a big pastry person, so I've never tried it.
As I said, this is my neighborhood. I'm off from work April 19 for Good Friday. I'm always glad to meet up with a Cranepooler, so I'll PM you my number if you want me to join you for lunch or a beer.
To get downtown from Ohio City, make a left on Lorain. You'll almost immediately cross the Lorain-Carnegie bridge. You'll see some cool sculpture in the bridge pillars ("the Guardians of Transportation"). At the foot of the bridge, the street name changes from Lorain to Carnegie, and you'll be looking right at Progressive Field. Welcome to the southwestern edge of downtown Cleveland.
Downtown
I'm not a big downtown guy. I prefer the neighborhoods. But the pedestrian mall along E. 4 has some nice shops and restaurants. Take a look at the Terminal Tower, in the center of town at Euclid and Ontario. It's a beautiful building and was, until around 1990, the tallest building in North America between NYC and Chicago. In front of the building is the statue of Moses Cleaveland that the fans stuck an Indians cap on in Major League. Nice shopping mall inside the tower.
Plenty of little places to have dinner before the game. Yours Truly - there's one in Playhouse Square just east of downtown, and I think there's one on E. 5th and Euclid - is kind of the standard chain if you have kids with you. It's perfectly OK. If you want to go fancy, the Greenhouse Tavern is about the best place downtown, though you'll need reservations and it won't be cheap (though pricy by Cleveland standards is still a serious bargain if you're a New Yorker). It's casual enough for the kids, though.
I don't generally eat at the ballpark, so I can't tell you too much there, but most of the places I recommended above also have booths at the park. And go see the Indians' Hall of Fame outside the park.
I'd consider going to the game, myself, but it's Passover that evening and I'll be at seder.
Saturday
The Rock Hall and the river tours are the Statue of Liberty and Circle Line of Cleveland. If you want to avoid Clevelanders, sure, do it. I went to the Rock Hall once, sometime in the last millenium, long before I moved here. It's beautiful and probably worth seeing. I believe it's crazy expensive.
You'll go to the Rock Hall because it's the Rock Hall. But I'd give the boat a miss. After the Rock Hall, go east, to Little Italy and the museums. Take the Shoreway and get off at MLK Boulevard, and you'll go south through the beautiful Cultural Gardens. Little Italy runs for about six blocks uphill along Mayfield Road (not named for the Browns quarterback, at least not yet), between Euclid Avenue and Lakeview Cemetery (which is worth driving through...eternal home of John D. Rockefeller, James Garfield, Harvey Pekar, and Ray Chapman). Presti's has the best sandwiches.
If you like coffee, Rising Star onRandom Rd. Murray Hill Rd. just off Mayfield has the third best espresso I've ever had. The second best ran me $8, and the first best was in Cuba. So stick with Rising Star at $2.75, including a glass of seltzer. If you like tea, Algebra Tea House, a little further up Random Murray Hill on the opposite side of the street, is quite good.
You may run into me in Little Italy. I'll be doing this walk:
https://m.facebook.com/FullClevelandWalk/. Feel free to join in.
After Little Italy, head west on Mayfield about five blocks to the Cleveland Art Museum, which is generally ranked among the top art museums in the country. It's certainly the best free admission art museum. This is the cultural center of the city. Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra, is also there, as well as the modern art museum and the museum of natural history. The Case Western campus is intertwined.
If you have dinner in Little Italy, Mia Bella's is excellent. Also a place whose name begins with V that I can't think of off the top of my head. I've heard that Mama Santa's has good pizza, but I've never tried it.
Afterwards
Are you definitely staying over in Cleveland Saturday night? If not, I'd recommend heading towards Detroit in the late afternoon. You can stop in Lakewood, our hipster inner ring suburb. Lakewood Park has the Solstice Steps, which give a beautiful view of the sunset over Lake Erie. It's fun. The town comes out and watches the sunset, and then they give the sun a nice round of applause when it's over.
If you were to have dinner there, Detroit Avenue is the main drag and has plenty of good restaurants. The Root, a hipster vegetarian (not vegan) place, is delicious. Aladdin's is a good Middle Eastern chain. El Carnicero is good upscale Mexican.
You'll be west of Cleveland and on your way to Detroit. I'd stay somewhere between.
Getting to Detroit
The Ohio Turnpike is fast, but blah. I'd take Ohio Rt. 2. West of Sandusky, it becomes a gorgeous causeway over Sandusky Bay. The downside of 2 is that once you're west of the causeway, it becomes a two lane state road for about 15 miles, until you hit I-280 in the Toledo suburbs.
Take I-280. You'll cross a beautiful cable-stay bridge over the Maumee River in Toledo. You'll likely take 280 even if you opt for the OH Turnpike.
From there, you pick up I-75 to Detroit.
Detroit
I don't really know Detroit. For the most part, I'll defer to 41. However, the best beef barbecue I ever had was at Slows, in the Corktown neighborhood (which is a good part of Detroit).
Toronto
We were there last year for a few days. Here are my memories.
- Are you staying at a hotel with parking? We didn't drive there, but I remember it being nearly impossible to leave your car long term anywhere in Toronto. Don't drive around Toronto. They have a fantastic public transportation system. It's slightly confusing because it involves streetcars as well as subways and buses, but it's quick, efficient, and easy.
- Loved the Ontario Museum of Art, as well as the park around it.
- We went to Asiatown, around Dundas and Spadina. Possibly one of the best tasting foods I have ever eaten anywhere was the black sesame gelato at Kekou, on Queen just west of Spadina.
- The St. Lawrence Market. I love public markets, and this one is one of the few that I like even better than the West Side Market. And there was a place where you could get a reasonably authentic Montreal smoked meat sandwich, which comes in right behind that black sesame gelato in the Best Foods Anywhere race.
- Just for grins, take the ferry over to the little airport on Lake Ontario. I can't remember the name of the airport. It's Billy Something. I want to call it Billy Bragg, but that's not it. It handles domestic flights, mostly from Montreal. The ferry is free, takes you about 100 yards from the mainland to the little island where the airport is located, and offers a great view of the Toronto skyline. It's pretty near the Rogers Centre.
Have fun!
As far as Cleveland - since you said you'll be driving to Detroit and Toronto, I'm assuming you'll be renting a car from the airport. I think the subway ("rapid" in Cleveland parlance) is easier, but you've got a wife and kids and in-laws, so I can see the value of having a car. Fair warning - the rental car pickup in Cleveland is a pain in the ass. It's a long shuttle ride to the rental area.
I'm guessing you're staying at a hotel downtown.
Straight from the airport
You're arriving midday, so you'll be hungry. Don't go straight downtown. Stop in my neighborhood, Ohio City.
Best way to get there would be to pick up 71 north from the airport, and get off at Pearl Rd. Drive north on Pearl for about a mile through a kind of eh neighborhood. It becomes W.25th. Keep going north and you'll hit a big intersection - Lorain Avenue. To your right will be a rapid stop and, across the street, a brick building with something that looks like a bell tower. That's the West Side Market, Cleveland's public market. There's parking behind the market and metered parking on the street.
The West Side Market is fantastic. Kind of like the Reading Terminal Market in Philly if you've ever been there, but more fresh foods and fewer restauranty foods. So a lot of your time at the WSM will just be walking around. However, Maha's Falafel, at the northeast corner of the market, has excellent, quick Middle Eastern falafel and kebobs. It's not a sit-down place. If you want to sit down and eat, if the weather is nice, cross W. 25th and eat at Market Square, the little pocket park at the NW corner of W. 25th and Lorain.
If you want some beer, and also a regular sit-down lunch, go to Great Lakes, which is on Market (the little street north of Market Square). It's been around since the mid 80s, just before the brewpub craze hit hard. Beer is great, particularly the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter and the IPA (which I think is called Conway). Food is excellent as brew pubs go.
There are other good places to eat along W. 25th. North of the market, Nate's Deli (also Middle Eastern) is a very good sit-down restaurant. Ohio City Burrito - more fast foody, on the west side of W. 25th, about four blocks north of the market, is quite good.
South of Lorain, W. 25th has really developed over the past few years. I've heard Bakersfield has excellent tacos, though I haven't been there yet. A lot of people rave about Citizen Pie pizza, but I'm not nuts about it. Certainly, it's not NYC style pizza.
There are other bars along W. 25th, but I wouldn't bother with them for either beer or food, except maybe Market Garden, which is the standard go-to place if Great Lakes is crowded.
Great Lakes and Market Garden also have nice souvenir shops if you want to bring stuff back with you.
For dessert, Picadilly ice cream in the WSM is very good. Mitchell's, a few blocks north on W. 25th (with the movie theater marquee) is a small, excellent Cleveland ice cream chain. If you want to walk a couple of blocks west on Lorain, Farkas is supposed to have terrific Hungarian pastries. I'm not a big pastry person, so I've never tried it.
As I said, this is my neighborhood. I'm off from work April 19 for Good Friday. I'm always glad to meet up with a Cranepooler, so I'll PM you my number if you want me to join you for lunch or a beer.
To get downtown from Ohio City, make a left on Lorain. You'll almost immediately cross the Lorain-Carnegie bridge. You'll see some cool sculpture in the bridge pillars ("the Guardians of Transportation"). At the foot of the bridge, the street name changes from Lorain to Carnegie, and you'll be looking right at Progressive Field. Welcome to the southwestern edge of downtown Cleveland.
Downtown
I'm not a big downtown guy. I prefer the neighborhoods. But the pedestrian mall along E. 4 has some nice shops and restaurants. Take a look at the Terminal Tower, in the center of town at Euclid and Ontario. It's a beautiful building and was, until around 1990, the tallest building in North America between NYC and Chicago. In front of the building is the statue of Moses Cleaveland that the fans stuck an Indians cap on in Major League. Nice shopping mall inside the tower.
Plenty of little places to have dinner before the game. Yours Truly - there's one in Playhouse Square just east of downtown, and I think there's one on E. 5th and Euclid - is kind of the standard chain if you have kids with you. It's perfectly OK. If you want to go fancy, the Greenhouse Tavern is about the best place downtown, though you'll need reservations and it won't be cheap (though pricy by Cleveland standards is still a serious bargain if you're a New Yorker). It's casual enough for the kids, though.
I don't generally eat at the ballpark, so I can't tell you too much there, but most of the places I recommended above also have booths at the park. And go see the Indians' Hall of Fame outside the park.
I'd consider going to the game, myself, but it's Passover that evening and I'll be at seder.
Saturday
The Rock Hall and the river tours are the Statue of Liberty and Circle Line of Cleveland. If you want to avoid Clevelanders, sure, do it. I went to the Rock Hall once, sometime in the last millenium, long before I moved here. It's beautiful and probably worth seeing. I believe it's crazy expensive.
You'll go to the Rock Hall because it's the Rock Hall. But I'd give the boat a miss. After the Rock Hall, go east, to Little Italy and the museums. Take the Shoreway and get off at MLK Boulevard, and you'll go south through the beautiful Cultural Gardens. Little Italy runs for about six blocks uphill along Mayfield Road (not named for the Browns quarterback, at least not yet), between Euclid Avenue and Lakeview Cemetery (which is worth driving through...eternal home of John D. Rockefeller, James Garfield, Harvey Pekar, and Ray Chapman). Presti's has the best sandwiches.
If you like coffee, Rising Star on
You may run into me in Little Italy. I'll be doing this walk:
https://m.facebook.com/FullClevelandWalk/. Feel free to join in.
After Little Italy, head west on Mayfield about five blocks to the Cleveland Art Museum, which is generally ranked among the top art museums in the country. It's certainly the best free admission art museum. This is the cultural center of the city. Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra, is also there, as well as the modern art museum and the museum of natural history. The Case Western campus is intertwined.
If you have dinner in Little Italy, Mia Bella's is excellent. Also a place whose name begins with V that I can't think of off the top of my head. I've heard that Mama Santa's has good pizza, but I've never tried it.
Afterwards
Are you definitely staying over in Cleveland Saturday night? If not, I'd recommend heading towards Detroit in the late afternoon. You can stop in Lakewood, our hipster inner ring suburb. Lakewood Park has the Solstice Steps, which give a beautiful view of the sunset over Lake Erie. It's fun. The town comes out and watches the sunset, and then they give the sun a nice round of applause when it's over.
If you were to have dinner there, Detroit Avenue is the main drag and has plenty of good restaurants. The Root, a hipster vegetarian (not vegan) place, is delicious. Aladdin's is a good Middle Eastern chain. El Carnicero is good upscale Mexican.
You'll be west of Cleveland and on your way to Detroit. I'd stay somewhere between.
Getting to Detroit
The Ohio Turnpike is fast, but blah. I'd take Ohio Rt. 2. West of Sandusky, it becomes a gorgeous causeway over Sandusky Bay. The downside of 2 is that once you're west of the causeway, it becomes a two lane state road for about 15 miles, until you hit I-280 in the Toledo suburbs.
Take I-280. You'll cross a beautiful cable-stay bridge over the Maumee River in Toledo. You'll likely take 280 even if you opt for the OH Turnpike.
From there, you pick up I-75 to Detroit.
Detroit
I don't really know Detroit. For the most part, I'll defer to 41. However, the best beef barbecue I ever had was at Slows, in the Corktown neighborhood (which is a good part of Detroit).
Toronto
We were there last year for a few days. Here are my memories.
- Are you staying at a hotel with parking? We didn't drive there, but I remember it being nearly impossible to leave your car long term anywhere in Toronto. Don't drive around Toronto. They have a fantastic public transportation system. It's slightly confusing because it involves streetcars as well as subways and buses, but it's quick, efficient, and easy.
- Loved the Ontario Museum of Art, as well as the park around it.
- We went to Asiatown, around Dundas and Spadina. Possibly one of the best tasting foods I have ever eaten anywhere was the black sesame gelato at Kekou, on Queen just west of Spadina.
- The St. Lawrence Market. I love public markets, and this one is one of the few that I like even better than the West Side Market. And there was a place where you could get a reasonably authentic Montreal smoked meat sandwich, which comes in right behind that black sesame gelato in the Best Foods Anywhere race.
- Just for grins, take the ferry over to the little airport on Lake Ontario. I can't remember the name of the airport. It's Billy Something. I want to call it Billy Bragg, but that's not it. It handles domestic flights, mostly from Montreal. The ferry is free, takes you about 100 yards from the mainland to the little island where the airport is located, and offers a great view of the Toronto skyline. It's pretty near the Rogers Centre.
Have fun!
Last edited by Chad ochoseis on Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
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Johnny Lunchbucket
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Re: Road Trip!
Ochoseis gives serious tour advice. We totally destroyed Montreal with his help, Fairmont bagels, yum.
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Centerfield
- Posts: 2976
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Re: Road Trip!
OMG. Thank you for this! Amazing!
Re: Road Trip!
Sunday, April 21: Wake up early and drive to Detroit. 1:10 game White Sox at Tigers. Dinner in Detroit.
Monday, April 22: Definitely want to hit the Motown Museum. Was thinking to take a tour of the GM plant but not sure if this is too much for one day. That afternoon, we drive to Toronto.
Detroit has made tremendous progress, but still is not where it wants to be. The downtown area has been transformed the most.
The Motown Museum is really small -- for now. There are plans for a massive upgrade, but that's just starting.
The Detroit Institute of Art has some really neat pieces and a room full of knight armor, which the kids really like. It's right downtown, and next to a science museum, which is really cool.
Now, if you have a car and want to see the best museum around, the Henry Ford in nearby Dearborn is a world-class museum. You will easily spend a day there, and it will appeal to adults and kids. There's a lot of presidential stuff, which I'm really into. A number of presidential limos, including the one JFK used in Dallas. Lincoln's chair from Ford's Theater. All the cars and trains you'd want to see. The Rosa Parks bus is incredibly moving. Then attached to it is Greenfield Village, an historic with the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop, Edison's labs -- all kinds of things. And you can go for a ride in a real Model T.
Enjoy!!!
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Centerfield
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Re: Road Trip!
Thank you guys for the recommendations! Back home now and completely exhausted. We knew going in that it was a lot to take on, but we woudln't trade it for the world. If you're going to try this, I recommend not trying it in April, but if you have kids, you have to go when the schedule allows. I'll create threads for each of the individual parks.