A beautiful day at a new park

Well, we made it through our mid-September birthday bonanza....unscathed. : ) We hosted family and friends for a Lego party for a seven year-old on Saturday. Some pics of that to follow. We had just beautiful weather here this last weekend, so we decided to head downtown on Sunday for a nice little birthday outing.

We went down to a new park in Cincinnati. I have to say, the city has done a really nice job with a few parks lately. We visited the updated Washington Park, which is across the street from the historic Music Hall in Cincinnati. Once upon a time, I became affianced near that building....; )

It was a derelict park, with not much going for it at all. Now they have really cool water features, a gated kids' play area, an urban dog park with fountains for dogs, a gazebo for performances and a nice open space that was hosting the Celtic Fest that day.

There were some GREAT plantings....I loved the pennisetums in this bed.

Interesting yellows/oranges and dark ornamental peppers.

Massed bloodgrass. Love it.

I liked the dark maroon plant in this bed with the orange/yellows.

I think these pink plants were vinca.

Old cannon from the old park with some great swaths of color.

More pennisetum and spider flowers, too.

An incredible amount of hardscaping in this park.

The gazebo, which I think is original to the park, but updated a bit?

VERY cool interactive fountain. We brought a change of clothes for the kids.

There was a wall with steps and cascading water. Very cool!

Music Hall with fountains.

I think it was Napoleon who said that the square in front of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy was the "the drawing room of Europe." I've been thinking that this is a beautiful front porch for Music Hall.