Cleveland Museum of Art

Saturday
This morning we drove up to Cleveland, in the opposite corner of the state, for a long weekend - about 3 3/4 hours drive. Since the forecast for today was mainly cloudy with the possibility of a shower, we thought it would be a good day for visiting Cleveland Museum of Art. The first thing we did was have some lunch in the museum cafe which is located at the far end of this magnificent atrium. The original Beaux Arts building of white Georgian marble on the left was opened in 1916, " for the benefit of all people forever", and the museum has remained true to that proclamation, still offering free admission. The museum has seen significant expansions over the years, culminating with a new east wing in 2009 and the north wing and atrium in 2014. It has a wonderful and varied collection, and we certainly didn't have time to cover it all, so we focused on the European collection.
The museum closed at 5pm and by this time the sun had broken through and we went for a walk around the museum and then around the adjacent Wade Lagoon, which seemed to be a popular place for having your wedding photos taken - we saw three wedding parties as we walked around! I've added some extras of the outside of the building and the view across Wade Lagoon.
We then headed to the area known as Ohio City, home to the famed West Side Market, numerous eateries and craft breweries, notably Great Lakes Brewing. Being a Saturday night, it was a busy place, but we didn't have too long to wait for a table, and enjoyed some good food and beer. Just down the road was Mitchell's Ice Cream, housed in a former old theatre building. Roger and I shared one of their sundaes - definitely some of the best ice cream I've had!
Then it was time to head out to our hotel - we'd had difficulty finding somewhere for tonight, as apart from it being a holiday weekend, we discovered there was also a U2 concert, so there were very few hotel rooms left, and we had ended up booking one for tonight out in the suburbs!