First of all spending 36 hours in Columbus in dead of winter and Covid was way too much but we booked a nonrefundable hotel for two nights and I tried to squeeze as many attractions and entertainment from this city as much as I could but we still ended up spending quiet a lot of time in our hotel room.

The highlight was a visit to state’s Capitol. The guided tours are currently cancelled but you can do a self guided tour. They provide a very detailed brochure and each exhibit has a phone number with a narrated description.  It was Monday and turns out that Ohio legislators are off on Mondays so the building was mostly empty.  One of the custodians who saw me fiddling with the map was nice enough to take it upon himself to show us around and so we had a private tour of the building including some rooms not usually open to public.

We also visited The Topiary Garden famous for shrubs and trees cut in a manner duplicating the famous Seurat’s painting “Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatte”.

 

We took some photos with a statute of Arnold Schwarzenegger that is surprisingly located in Columbus. Apparently he won some sort of a body building contest here many years ago.

Another place definitely worth a visit is the Book Loft. An amazing book store having 32 rooms located in the German Village and offering every kind and variety of genres. The prices are extremely good and I ended up buying three books (can’t wait to read them)

For food we had dinner at the Short North area, a strip of shops and eateries,  in a “Happy Greek” restaurant and drinks in Flatiron Tavern next to our Red Roof Plus motel while watching the Superbawl. The drinks were good and extremely cheap.

Another memorable meal was a take out from a Jewish deli Katzinger’s located in German Village, a quaint neighborhood south of downtown. 

That’s pretty much all you can get to do in winter Covid Columbus, OH….

About one hour drive west there is a small town of Dayton, a home to the Wright brothers and a birthplace of American aviation. There is a museum and some other sites that are under auspices of the National Part Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/dayton-aviation-heritage-national-historical-park-where-the-wright-brothers-conquered-the-air-teaching-with-historic-places.htm.

Unfortunately the site and the park were closed for us but I am sure Its a worthwhile place to visit under different circumstances.