Exploring Indianapolis

I was up and out early on a bus headed to Downtown to catch a 10am free tour run by Indiana Landmarks who help preserve buildings around the state. It only took in the circle around the Soldiers and Sailors Monument but gave loads of information about both it and the surrounding buildings and there was only me and one other person, a local on the hour long tour. It started to rain towards the end of the tour so I popped into the Colonel Eli Lilly Civil War Museum in the base of the monument. It gave me lots of general information about the war as well as more specific details of Indiana's role in it.

I emerged into bright sunshine and sauntered down to the Capitol Building, to the Convention Centre for tourist information and took a look in the City Market. The market was busy with people grabbing lunch and I also walked passed a road packed with upmarket food trucks.

From there I meandered up to the Indiana World War Memorial. It is absolutely enormous and when I got to the other side I found I was able to go inside. It contains an amazing shrine room to those who fought in the Great War, an auditorium and war museum. The museum had information on all the wars America has fought going back to the earliest battles. It also contained an amazing amount of World War memorabilia including Nazi artifacts brought back by World War II soldiers. Again it gave overall information about the wars along with some details of Indiana's particular role in each. Interestingly there was very little on Vietnam and a whole section dedicated to the more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq including some tales of Indiana born service personnel who had died in fighting.

I was in the museum for some time and when I left I walked up through Veterans Memorial Plaza and the American Legion Mall and took a look inside the Central Library, a very ornate building. I strolled down to White River State Park and stopped by their visitor information centre for more details on the park. I headed back towards the hostel on the bus and popped into the supermarket to grab some fresh rolls to have with my pasta dinner. 

I did a lot more walking than I had expected today. Tomorrow I hope to rent a bike from the hostel so I can cover some of the areas I've not already seen and ride parts of the Monon Trail and other trails around the city which is very well set up for cyclists.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument

Indiana World War Memorial

Shrine Room, Indiana World War Memorial