Cincinnati Weekend Getaway — Part One

For the Fourth of July weekend in 2022, my husband and I decided to go to Cincinnati, Ohio! We were originally planning to check out this city in April 2020 for my birthday, but the pandemic hit, and we couldn’t go. So I dusted off my itinerary, made a reservation at the hotel we had to cancel back in 2020, and started my packing list.

I did have to make a few adjustments to the itinerary because the original plan was to stay in the city for one night, but this time we were able to stay for two nights. I was hoping to use hotel points to pay for the nights, but because our trip fell on a holiday weekend, I couldn’t.

On Saturday morning, we left home and ventured towards Ohio stopping first at Loveland Castle. This was a small castle on the outskirts of Cincinnati. To get to it, you had to drive down steep winding roads. It’s in the middle of houses, but the photos on their website made it seem like it was in the middle of a large field. It’s pretty, but I didn’t learn much if anything about the history of the castle, why it was built, and who built it. There was a room that had some videos playing, but it was always crowded when we walked by, so we didn’t get to see them. It was quite hot too, so we didn’t stay long.

We then drove to Jungle Jim’s International Market. There’s two locations; we went to the Eastgate location. We had heard about this place from others who have either lived in the area or visited the area, so we decided to check it out. I am so glad we did! It is a huge grocery store, but it is so much more! They have food and drinks from all over the world! If you remember from earlier blog posts, my husband had purchased a Universal Yums subscription package for me for Christmas 2020 where I got snacks from a different country each month for six months. This store was like a million huge Universal Yums boxes had exploded!

In each aisle, there were signs telling you what country the food was from. We had to buy caramel and chocolate stroopwafels from the Netherlands since we knew we liked them after trying them in a Universal Yums box! We wandered down each aisle picking things that looked good or interesting and put them in our basket. There was a section for beer, wine, candy, spicy foods, and more! There were even a few stations set up where you could sample food.

We tried some of the treats that weekend and others when we got back from our trip. We still need to try some of the food and drinks still! We had beer from Iceland that was really good! It was a mix of beer, chocolate, and coffee. The beer I chose from Japan didn’t taste the best. I had a raspberry alcoholic malt beverage from Austria and a strawberry milk tea from Thailand that were delicious! We had chocolate panda snacks from either Japan or China, and a Tortuga Rum Cake from the Caribbean, which was very rich in rum! You could definitely taste the rum!

We bought puppodums from India; we’ve had puppodums before at a friend’s house, so we know we like them. David watched my friend’s mom make them, so he was an expert when he made them himself. They were delicious! We still have flan from Spain left to make!

Stay tuned for part two of our Cincinnati weekend getaway!