Saturday, we drove around Cincinnati.

..

Very ugly Freedom Bell

We crossed the river into Kentucky to the Riverfront at Newport, which looks across to the skyscrapers of Cincinnati. It is a "fun" complex, with IMAX, 20-screen movie house, shops, and a wonderful aquarium. You walk thorough plexiglas tubular tunnels, surrounded on all sides by fish and divers swimming among them.

..

..

..

..

..

..

We ate fish for lunch, without hesitation. Next, we drove to the Cincinnati Art Museum, which Carol pronounced excellent (the Philistine sat in the museum café and read). We tried unsuccessfully to find some funky neighborhoods, and returned to the hotel to watch Al Pacino in "The Recruit," a spy thriller, with Al Pacino doing, as usual, a lot of yelling, mugging, and eye-rolling. Not bad, though, worthy of three Farklempt stars.

We went out for a late dinner at Mecklenburg Gardens, seeking the old world German ambience that marked the early days of what the locals called, with their German accents, "Zinzinnati." It was an old-world beer garden with 40 kinds of beer, mostly German, much of it on tap. It's in a neighborhood that has seen better times. We had a two-fer coupon from a tourist magazine, so it was actually a bargain. I had prime rib that was really quite good for $13.95. I had to make up my own horseradish sauce from some sourcream and grated horseradish that I got the waiter to bring. Carol had a baked vegetable dumpling with tomato sauce that was edible. With glasses of good beer and and wine, it came to $46 with tip. Two Farklempt stars.