*Travel Info>>>Cleveland Travel Info

Is it nice?

Travel Info
me and my friend travis wanna take a 3 week trip to cleveland, is it nice there or should we go somewhere else?

Travel Tips

Well after a lot of traveling myself, I can honestly say there are some really nice parts of Cleveland. The thing about it though that makes it worth a visit is that it is a really interesting city, really inexpensive, great attractions, filled with contrasts, and NOT overrun by tourists. More and more tourists are coming every year, even international tourists, but it hasn't reached the point at all where it has become filled with chain restaurants and sleazy souvenir shops. I think it is one of the last cool cities in the Western World that has maintained a really cool atmosphere. Once you see all the hotspots in America, and hang out all the nice but rather boring beach resorts in the South and West Coast, it is really cool to visit some non-touristy cities.

I love Cleveland, and people I have shown around town from other cities in the states and Europe have all loved it. My relatives from Lake Forest in the Chicago area claim they actually like Cleveland a little better than Chicago. They claim it has everything Chicago has, but much easier to get around and much cheaper. During the week and at lunch time, downtown is very vibrant, along with when a big concert or sporting event is going on. Outside of a couple downtown districts that I will mention, it isn't the type of downtown where a ton is going on 24/7.

I will say though that three weeks is an impressive commitment. You can certainly see all of Cleveland in three weeks, and certainly make some nice day trips outside the city. For our size we do have an impressive public transit system that includes light rail, but I really hope you bring your car to be able to get to some places that don't have access to public transit. Public transit here also doesn't run very late.

I would be interested in knowing where you are staying, what you like to do, what time of year you are visiting, and if you will have a car, but I will go ahead and make some recommendations.

To begin you could do a tour on Lolly-the-Trolley to get some good background on the city, and see a lot of the sights. I would do a downtown walking tour that I recommended someone else do on a previous post (browse my posts for more specific instructions). During the day begin at Tower City (also stop in the Historic Cleveland Renaissance Hotel connected to the center to view the lavish lobby and feel free to enjoy the atmosphere by getting a cup of coffee or glass of wine at the bar), see Public Square, E.4th, Old Arcade, Cleveland Library, Federal Reserve Bank, Civic Center, E.9th Pier where the Rock Hall is located, and Warehouse District. The Warehouse District just west of Public Square is a really cool atmosphere with lots of younger people. It has the nicest clubs and restaurants in Cleveland and you should spend several evenings out here. I would recommend many places; chiefly Metropolitan, D'Vine, Mercury Lounge, Sushi Rock, Sunset Lounge, and Mallorca. You should also spend a couple evenings out just east of Public Square on E.4th and Euclid Avenue. A popular Irish bar is located here, along with a House of Blues, and very large comedy and restaurant complex unique to Cleveland called Pickwick and Frolic. Other things to do downtown would to go to a game at Jacobs Field or Q Arena in Gateway (both are great venues and close to Tower City; accessible by underground walkway). The intersection of Prospect and Huron is a good place to go before and after the game. Panini's is a unique place to the Cleveland area with awesome sandwiches. Check out what is going at Playhouse Square for theater, because it is the second largest theater district at the country after Broadway, and a couple of the theaters at the time of construction were chosen by theater companies to be more lavish here than the ones they built in New York.

You could also make an entire day out of the Ohio City neighborhood just west of downtown via Lorain-Carnegie Bridge or Rapid train lines. This area is a little like Lincoln Park, although not as gentrified. There are some very nice places here. You have to visit the neighborhood's anchor the West Side Market. This is one of my favorite places in Cleveland, and the last city-owned market in the country. It is open Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. A lot of the shops are only open those days too, so go on one of those days. Saturdays is the best time to go. The cafe inside the market is very nice for lunch, but here are more on W.25th just north of the market. Across from the Market is a nice little street with the famous Great Lakes Brewing Co. You could do a tour of the brewery, but be sure to at least try the beer (Dortmunder Gold is my favorite). Talkies across the street from Great Lakes is one of the best Coffee houses in Cleveland, I recommend it. City Buddha, Something Different Gallery, and the Lelolai Hispanic bakery and cafe, and Opa! a tiny but very nice Greek restaurant north of the Market are very nice, and Modern World hidden above a scooter shop south of the market on W.25th is kind of a cool clothing boutique. Hansa Import House on Lorain Avenue near the Market features great German food imports, and St. Ignatius High School is quite an architectural sight to see. Ohio City has a great website and walking tour suggestion.

Tremont just South of Ohio City is another spot for Cleveland's best dining and art galleries. It is a more quieter and less dense version of the Warehouse District and Ohio City. It has an amazing collection of beautiful churches. It is anchored by Lincoln Park, and nationally famous restaurants like Lolita.

University Circle is Cleveland's second downtown located east of downtown. This is where all the museums, hospitals, and universities, and other cultural institutions are located around a beautiful lagoon park. To get here from downtown, I recommend taking I-90 East and getting off at MLK where you can travel through Rockefeller Park (worth seeing) and easily follow signs to University Circle. The Cleveland Museum of Art is quite phenomenal especially given that admission is free, but unfortunately closed for a 250 million dollar renovation and expansion. The other museums are great though, like Botannical Gardens (go here and not the zoo), Planiterium, Natural history museum, and Western Reserve Historical Society. The Cleveland Orchestra plays in the most beautiful concert hall called Severance Hall. This orchestra is the highest rated in the country, and worth seeing for sure, but if you can't than try and sneak into Severance Hall from the parking garage entrance on East Boulevard. The hall is sometimes open when people are practicing there, and really worth seeing just to walk around.

Directly east of University Circle at the intersection of Mayfield and Murray Hill is Little Italy. I personally like it much better than New York's. Cleveland's Little Italy is thriving with new houses, new restaurants, and lots of art galleries. Check out the old Murray Hill school for some of the art galleries.

Also bordering University Circle to the East are the Heights; Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights. Spend a couple days/nights out here. These suburbs were among America's first suburbs, planned as "Garden Cities", have beautiful old brown-stone mansions, and financing and planning input came from John D. Rockefeller himself. The intersection of Cedar Fairmont is a cool Tudor-style commercial and entertainment district. Fairmont Boulevard is also a must-see and famous boulevard in Cleveland. The intersection of Coventry and Mayfield road in Cleveland Heights is a funky district that is called Cleveland's Greenwich Village. The Grog Shop is a famous music venue, and Tommy's is Coventry's best known restaurant. In Shaker Heights (well on the border) is Shaker Square which is a Georgian style square (reminiscent of European squares). This is a great place to get dinner and see a at the historic and restored movie theater. A train runs through the center of the Square along Shaker Boulevard East either by train, or car, you will see the most famous boulevard in Shaker Heights. Shaker Lakes Nature Center and park is also very nice.

University Circle, Little Italy, Coventry, Cedar-Fairmont, Fairmont boulevard, and Shaker Square are all linked by a neighborhood bus circulator #821 and stops at a couple train stations linked to Tower City.

There is great shopping in Chicago, but there is a very nice shopping agglomeration in Beachwood on Cedar Road at Beachwood Place, La Place, and Legacy Village. These aren't typical shopping centers though, because there are a number of boutiques and restaurants at these centers unique to Cleveland.

From downtown to explore a bit of Cleveland's Gold Coast west of downtown you should take Rt. 2 West, exit at Lake Avenue, follow West and Continue to follow Lake Rd. West Here are some stops you can make at parks: Edgewater State Park, Lakewood Park, and Huntington Beach Park out in Bay Village. There aren't any great beaches on Lake Erie, but Huntington is the nicest, and has views of the skyline. When you get to W.117th you might want to take a left and then a quick right on Clifton (it is a really nice and unique commercial district). Diner on Clifton is great!

You might want to stop in Rocky River and exit at Detroit Avenue. Take a left and explore some boutiques, and restaurants in one of Cleveland's "fashionable suburbs". If you continue East just a little bit on Detroit you will be in Lakewood's West End, which is a nice little district that is a very popular bar spot among local urban professionals, as well as Sunday Brunch for Cleveland's affluent west-siders.

If you take Lake Road all the way west to Basset, you should take a left and take it all the way to Crocker Park. This is the quintessential West Side suburban shopping district and filled with good retailers, but also boutiques and restaurants unique to Cleveland, and some other things to do. Crocker Park is also accessible via I-90 from downtown

One day trip that I highly recommend is Chagrin Falls. It is South East of Cleveland, and an awesome New England style small town with quaint shops but also out of no where there are really trendy shops, upscale shops like Hermes?!, and nice restaurants, a famous popcorn shop, and a picturesque waterfall all in a historic small town district. On the way to Chagrin Falls on Chagrin Boulevard is a small, but very nice shopping center with some unique places (called Eton Collection). Drives through the County鈥檚 Metropark system or 鈥淓merald Necklace鈥? and Cuyahoga Valley National Park with a stop in the town of Peninsula are other ideas for day trips.

For entertainment, concert, and dining listings pick up the free weekly newspapers of the Scene or Free Times at any coffee shop and probably most grocery stores in the city. Both are great resources.

Concerts are held at Tower City, Q Arena, House of Blues, Agora, and Peabody's downtown. Jazz can be found at Fat Fish Blue downtown, or Nighttown in Cleveland Heights, or Boulevard Blue on Larchmere (one block North of Shaker Square). The Barking Spider Tavern is a really cool place with a variety of music (from big band nights to rock music) and located in a cool carriage house behind Arabica Coffee House (a famous Cleveland coffee shop in an old mansion) in the University Circle neighborhood. Cleveland's best kept secret is the Shwartz Brothers who play at Hooples in the Flats (West Bank). They played with Janis Joplin, and played for Hendrix's last birthday. Hooples also has the best views of the downtown skyline. Great Blues music can be found at Parkview Nite Club on W.58th North of Detroit (I always go for jam session on wednesday nights. It is a very typical Cleveland bar and suprisingly classy food.

Other great typical "Cleveland" restaurants would be Academy Tavern on Larchmere, the one of many 24hr diners on W.117th (favorite is My Friend's Deli and Restaurant at the intersection of Detroit Avenue), Water Street Grill on W.9th, or West End Tavern in Lakewood's West End.

On your way back to Chicago, stop at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky for a day. You might want to stop in the nice historic lakefront New England town of Vermillion. Cedar Point is such a nice large safe clean park on a picturesque amusement park on a peninsula over the lake. It has more roller coasters than anywhere else in the world, and often the tallest/fastest depending on the year.

Anyway, Hope you go. It definitely "has some gems" as we like to say. Oh yeah!, be sure to get a picture of yourself with the Cleveland Skyline from the Superior Viaduct park, located just North of the Detroit Superior bridge and entrance right before St. Malachi鈥檚.

This is a good or bad time to visit depending on how you look at it, because downtown will look incredibly different between 2009 and 2019. There are lots of large-scale transportation, residential, retail, civic, and cultural development projects (multi-billion dollars in investments) scheduled to happen during this decade that will completely transform Downtown, Ohio City, Tremont, University Circle and Little Italy. Downtown Cleveland and the entire city might soon be considered a hot and trendy place after all these projects are completed, and soon overrun by tourists. It would be cool to go here now, see some recent improvements (downtown Cleveland has the fastest growing downtown population in the Midwest, and 7th in the country right now), just to tell people several years down the road when everyone is really talking excitedly about the city that you have already been there and know all about it. Source(s): General visitor info and tours:
http://www.cleveland.com/visit/...
http://www.urbanohio.com (click NE Ohio, then Cleveland)
http://www.travelcleveland.com
http://www.lollytrolley.com/
http://www.kayak41north.com/
http://www.gcrta.org/

Downtown Attractions and hotspots:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/downtown_cl...
http://www.towercitycenter.com/...
http://www.rockhall.com/
http://www.greatscience.com/
http://www.east4thstreet.com/
http://www.vivo-cleveland.com/vivo-cleve...
http://www.viewnightclub.com/
http://www.liquidliving.com/home.asp...
http://www.themercurylounge.com/...
http://www.warehousedistrict.org/... (bad outdated website)
http://www.pickwickandfrolic.com/...
http://www.historicgateway.org/default.a...
http://www.playhousesquare.com/...

Nice Near West Districts:
http://www.ohiocity.com
http://www.restoretremont.com
http://www.tremonter.com/

University Circle
http://www.universitycircle.org/... (provides links to all museums)
http://www.clevelandorch.com/html/index....

East of Circle Districts:
http://www.shakersquare.net/map-directio...
http://www.littleitalycleveland.com/... (bad website, outdated)
http://www.coventryvillage.org
(no good website for Cedar Fairmont)
http://www.larchmere.com/
http://www.shakersquare.net/
http://www.shakerlakes.org/

Outter East Side:
http://www.beachwoodplace.com/html/...
http://www.legacy-village.com/default.as...

Gold Coast:
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/parks/parks/c...
http://www.clemetparks.com/visit/index.a...
http://www.crockerpark.com/

Music Venues:
http://hob.com/venues/clubvenues/clevela...
http://www.nauticaflats.com/
http://www.fatfishblue.com/
http://www.clevelandagora.com/
http://www.beachlandballroom.com/...
http://www.peabodys.com/
http://www.grogshop.gs/
http://www.barkingspidertavern.com/...
http://www.parkviewniteclub.com/...
http://www.hoopples.com/
http://www.nighttowncleveland.com/...
http://www.boulevardblue.com/

Entertainment Listings:
http://www.clevescene.com/
http://www.freetimes.com/

Day Trips:
http://www.etonchagrinblvd.com/...
http://www.chagrinfalls.net/
http://www.clemetparks.com/
http://www.nps.gov/cuva/
http://www.explorepeninsula.com/...
http://hvermilionohioharbourtown.homeste...
http://www.cedarpoint.com/

Other Travel Tips
its not bad. stick to the tourist areas.
Cleveland is very nice. There is lots of stuff to do. The only thing is whether or not you will want to spend three weeks there. There is a lot to do, but I don't know if you will find three weeks of entertainment, but it is definately possible. California, Florida, New York, may be a little bit better option if you want to go this long. You may also consider going somewhere that costs a little more, but go for a little bit shorter time, such as a cruise, or trip to Disney or touring California, etc.

Here are some links for Cleveland that may help you:
http://www.cleveland.com/

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-19...

http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/...

http://cleveland.about.com/

I hope this gives you a few ideas.

Good luck with your planning and have a great trip!
To me, Cleveland was a beautiful city just to walk around in. We were like you we went to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It is a beautiful city to see sitting right on the Shores of Lake Erie.
CLEVELAND?!

lol

Why Cleveland....lol...sorry, but...but but but...Cleveland?!

You have 3 weeks and you wanna go to Cleveland?

How about Tahoe? Catskills? Vegas? Miami? Hawaii?

Chicago? NYC...there's tons of places.

I'm not making fun, just so surprised. Nothing really wrong with Cleveland, but but but.....nevermind...lol.
cleveland clinic, rock & roll hall of fame, lake erie, gund arena,
playhouse square, cleveland metroparks zoo, Legacy Village, westside market, etc...
i particularly like the old buildings there.
btw,when you are there, why don't you take a weekend trip to niagara falls, by greyhound?