Josef “Jeff” Sipek

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Holly and I went to Minnesota four weeks ago. We stayed at Crowne Plaza in downtown Saint Paul and had enough free time to explore the city and its surroundings a bit. The weather was great, so the photos ended up pretty good looking. You can jump to the whole photo gallery or just look at the select few photos below.

The first day of exploring was pretty brief. We spent about two hours total exploring the other side of the Mississippi river. We found a place with a nice view of the whole downtown Saint Paul. Aside from the hotel from across the Mississippi river

and a bird of some sort (I have no idea what kind of bird this is) that was enjoying the updraft from the breeze hitting the river bank and turning up the steep hill side

I got enough shots to make a panorama of downtown. It is about 270 degree field of view! (I have a 14MB JPEG for those wishing to see all the details.)

On the way back to the hotel, we saw this old (and steep) stair case:

Here’s a shot of the bridge up close. Did I mention that the weather was great?

The next day, we didn’t explore since we didn’t have much time. However in the evening the Wikipedia article: mayflies took over the skies. It was amazing and annoying at the same time. The next morning, we went for breakfast and saw dead mayflies everywhere.

After breakfast we went on to explore the city a bit more. We immediately noticed that the whole city seemed deserted. Businesses just didn’t open on Sundays, after an hour of walking around we ran into maybe 5 people total.

Eventually, we asked a security guard what was going on. He said that downtown Saint Paul has enough government offices that the whole city more or less lives Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Eventually, we made it to the capitol hill — the capitol is on a hill. Again, I couldn’t resist the temptation to make a panorama. This time it is only 180 degrees wide. (17MB JPEG)

Then I climbed up the stairs, and took enough for a third (and final) panorama. Again, about 180 degrees wide. (9MB JPEG)

Afterwards, we mosied on toward the Saint Paul Cathedral. (Our last stop before going to the hotel to grab the bags and heading to the airport.)

There is a bunch of photos in the gallery that I didn’t include this post. That concludes this edition of “Travels with Jeff & Holly.”

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