Things to Do in Upper Arlington, area by area

The park that explains Upper Arlington in twenty minutes: mown lawns, painted court lines, a shaded playground and a picnic shelter, all of it free and all of it maintained to a standard that surprises visitors.

Upper Arlington's civic back garden — the biggest of the city parks, wrapped around a library branch, a municipal pool, a bank of tennis courts and the playground every local child has been photographed on.

The local favourite for a short walk in the trees: a paved loop through mature woodland with a playground and shelter attached, and the best small-scale woodland feeling inside Upper Arlington's city limits.

The city's best playground and its prettiest building in one place: a big modern play area, wide lawns and the relocated Amelita Mirolo Barn, the white timber landmark Upper Arlington weddings queue for.

A small neighbourhood green with a very large story behind its name — the Miller family farm was the land King and Ben Thompson bought in 1913 to build Upper Arlington on.

Upper Arlington's deliberately undeveloped corner: a wooded, quiet nature park with a walking path, left largely alone so that the city has somewhere that is not mown, lined and floodlit.

The water Upper Arlington backs onto: a long, narrow park strung down Riverside Drive beside the dammed Scioto, with boat ramps, shaded picnic tables, herons, and the best sunset view within ten minutes of the city.

Thirteen acres of formal rose beds inside a 148-acre riverside park, ten minutes from Upper Arlington and free every hour it is open.

The loop every Columbus runner knows: a flat mile and a bit of crushed limestone around a former quarry lake, free, floodlit by sunset and busy from dawn.

Upper Arlington's own riverside green — ball fields, big trees and a quiet bank on the Scioto, five minutes from Tremont and almost never crowded.

The low brick shopping strip on Tremont Road that Upper Arlington uses as a town square, where a family grocer, a doughnut counter and a fish-and-chips pub have outlasted every mall in the county.

Upper Arlington's practical heart since the late 1950s — a big free car park, a supermarket with a prepared-food hall you can eat lunch in, and the pharmacies, clinics and services a week-long stay actually needs.

The 1920s Tudor Revival shopping block that King Thompson built as Upper Arlington's original high street, and still the prettiest two hundred metres in the city.

Upper Arlington's smartest shopping and eating corner — a Whole Foods, a run of national names and two of the city's best restaurants within one walkable block of West Lane Avenue.

The 1920s garden suburb that gave the city its name and its look — curving boulevards, Tudor, Colonial and Craftsman houses, and a National Register listing you can walk through for nothing.

Upper Arlington's original 1920s shopping row: a short parade of Tudor Revival storefronts with a small green at its heart, built as the village centre and still the most characterful street in the city.

Twenty minutes from Upper Arlington, one of the country's finest Greek Revival capitols — free to enter, free to tour, with a rotunda, a map room and a working legislature under one limestone roof.

A genuine limestone gorge with two waterfalls hidden behind the shops of Historic Dublin, twenty minutes north of Upper Arlington and free to walk.

A half-mile of shale gorge cut straight through the north Columbus grid — stone steps, a creek and a small waterfall, ten minutes from Upper Arlington.

Seven thousand acres of prairie, wetland and two National Scenic Rivers — plus a bison herd — and the whole thing is free.

The Columbus-born cafe that made a black-bean veggie burger famous, doing all-day breakfast, big salads and proper coffee on Upper Arlington's best-connected corner.

The Cameron Mitchell neighbourhood restaurant that Upper Arlington books for birthdays, graduations and every visiting parent — rotisserie chicken, a serious bar and a patio worth the wait.

Fish and chips served on paper in a dark-wood English-style pub wedged into a 1950s strip mall — the most reliably local room in Upper Arlington.