Kings Island

Paramount's Kings Island offers oodles of coasters: from The Beast, the world's longest wooden one; to the King Cobra, where you ride standing up; to The Beastie, a small fry favorite.

Other attractions include Days of Thunder which puts the traveler in the driver's seat in a NASCAR race. Visit the park's Old Coney section and enjoy traditional amusement park fun on the Merry Go Round, Dodgems or Scrambler.

A day at Paramount Kings Island offers music and shows, shopping and thrills and laughs. The amusement park is located about 45 minutes from downtown Cincinnati northeast on Interstate 71. It is open daily from Memorial Day through the third week of August. The park is open weekends from the second weekend in April to Memorial Day and on select weekends from the last weekend in August to mid October.

Oldenberg Brewery

Cincinnati's remaining large brewery - Hudepohl-Schoenling - still produces the most suds in the city, but a micro-brewery - Oldenberg Brewing Company in Northern Kentucky - lures the visitors.

Oldenberg is just off the Buttermilk Pike exit of Interstate 75 about 10 minutes south of downtown Cincinnati and 10 minutes north of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. It's a popular first stop for visitors flying into the Queen City.

Besides a top-notch restaurant and an array of beers brewed on premises, Oldenberg boasts entertainment, a museum of brewing history and even an annual beer camp in March and a beer school for suds aficionados.

Visitors can quaff a mug of Oldenberg Premium Verum, Oldenderg Blonde (a pilsner brew), Holy Grail Nut Brown Ale or Raspberry Wheat beer. The Premium Verum and the Raspberry Wheat won silver and bronze medals, respectively, at the World Beer Championships in Chicago last winter.

Ohio River cruises

There are breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner excursions. There are all-day tours downriver to Lawrenceburg, Ind., where casino gambling is planned this year. Or visit the 19th-century river towns of Rising Sun, Ind., and Rabbit Hash, Ky.

Many of the excursions offer entertainment, too.

The paddlewheelers also head upriver to quaint New Richmond, Ohio, - a village that hugs a river bend - and they pass through the locks at the Mehldahl Dam to get there.

Visitors board most riverboats along the Kentucky shoreline.

For information about river cruises:

• BB Riverboats, 1 Madison Ave, Covington Ky; 1-606-261-8500, Fax 1-606-292-2452; Web address: www.bbriverboats.com

• Queen City Riverboats, 303 O'Fallon St., Dayton, Ky; 1-606-292-8687. There is no e- mail or Web Address.

Krohn Conservatory

The greenhouse is 22,000 square feet under glass. It opened in 1939 and features about 1,500 specimens representing about 250 species and varieties, including outstanding displays of cactus and orchids.

The conservatory is open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. except Wednesday when hours are extended to 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Write Krohn Conservatory, 1501 Eden Park Dr., Cincinnati, Ohio, 45202.

Call (513) 421-4086.

Fax (513) 421-6007.

There is no e-mail or Web address.

Museum Center

Seeing the feature film at the Omnimax Theater - one of only 17 in the world - featuring a five story egg-shaped screen that puts you in the middle of the action.

The Cincinnati Museum Center is home to the Cincinnati Historical Society, where visitors can glimpse the Queen City as it was in the 1940s.

The museum center is housed in Union Terminal - completed in 1933 as Cincinnati's railroad hub. The terminal's rotunda, an enormous circular chamber, measures 180 feet in diameter at the floor level and towers 106 feet above from the ground floor to the dome's apex. A series of mosaic murals depicting Cincinnati's history color the walls.

The center is also home to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History and Science, where exhibits catch the interests of young and old. It includes a Discovery Center for children as well as archeological finds from the Cincinnati area. The museum offers changing exhibits and attractions.

The museum center is a short drive west of downtown Cincinnati and can be seen from Interstate 75.

Write the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, 1301 Western Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45203.

Call 1-800-733-2077.

There is no e-mail or Web address.

Metamora, Ind.

Metamora, Ind., is about 45 minutes from downtown Cincinnati. Drive west on Interstate 74 to the Brookville exit and north on U.S. Route 52 to the hamlet on the old Whitewater Canal.

Many of the original town buildings face Canal Lock #25 and the old mill near the locks. Twenty one of Metamora's buildings appear on the National Register of Historic Places. In season, rides on a canal boat and the Whitewater Valley Railroad provide visitors a glimpse of yesterday. The canal boat museum also lures the historian in all of us.

Today, Metamora is a haven for the buyer of antiques and collectibles. More than 100 privately owned shops tease the buyer or browser to step inside. Art galleries, bed and breakfast inns, and a variety of restaurants and sandwich and snack shops are available. Horse-drawn carriages take visitors through the village of tree-lined lanes.

Although a few shops are open year-round, Metamora bustles from mid-April through December. Memorial Day weekend and Christmas week are popular and busy.

Write the Merchants Association of Metamora Inc., P.O. Box 117, Metamora, Ind., 47030.

Call the Metamora Welcome Line, (317) 647-2109.

There is no e-mail or Web address.

Highlights of Native American history

Serpent Mound puzzles archeologists. Constructed by Native Americans in the shape of a snake, it uncoils in seven deep curves along a bluff overlooking Brush Creek, An oval embankment near the end of the bluff likely represents the open mouth of the serpent as it strikes.

Serpent Mound State Memorial is located in Adams County, Ohio, about 90 minutes east of downtown Cincinnati via Interstate 275 and Ohio 32. It is near a rural crossroads - Peebles, Ohio.

The serpent undoubtedly is a religious symbol. However, details of the religious belief and meaning surrounding the effigy are unknown. The mound was not built over any burials or remains of living areas, nor were any artifacts found in it to identify which prehistoric culture built it.

Nearby are several burial mounds built by the Adena Indians between 800 B.C. and 1 A.D. Around 1000 A.D., Fort Ancient Indians established a small village near the bluff.

Researchers are studying the possibility the serpent may be aligned to certain astronomical observations. The mound has stirred the curiosity of scientists and laymen for more than a century.

Write Serpent Mound State Memorial, 3850 State Route 73, Peebles, Ohio 45660.

Call (513) 587-2796.

There is no e-mail or Web address.

Fort Ancient: Turn the page to Ohio at the time of Christ. On a bluff rising 250 feet above the Little Miami River, Hopewell Indians constructed more than 3.5 miles of earth and stone walls.

It is called Fort Ancient, an Ohio State Memorial and National Historic Landmark.

The Little Miami, which curls below the fort, has been designated a National Scenic River.

Fort Ancient is in Warren County about an hour northeast of downtown Cincinnati on Interstate 71, then a few more miles on two-lane highway.

For years, Fort Ancient was considered a defensive enclosure, but more recent evidence indicates it was used for social gatherings and religious ceremonies.

The Hopewell Indians are among the best known of the Woodland Indian cultures that occupied much of Ohio between 800 B.C. and 1200 A.D.

The site offers hiking trails and a museum of Native American culture featuring artifacts recovered from the Fort Ancient site.

Write Fort Ancient State Memorial, 6123 State Route 350, Oregonia, Ohio, 45054.

Call (513) 932-4421.

There is no e-mail or Web address.

Civil War history

Spring Grove, a short drive north of downtown Cincinnati, lures thousands of visitors annually and is studied by horticulturalists from around the world. The cemetery features a self-guided walking tour; visitors also can tour by car through the maze of tree-lined lanes. Fourteen lakes and a waterfall add to the tranquility of the cemetery. It features bronze, granite and marble sculptures, gothic and Roman architecture and contemporary and classic stained glass.

It is paradise found for artists, photographers, historians and gardeners.

Write Spring Grove Cemetery, 4521 Spring Grove Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45232-1954.

Call (513) 681-6680.

Fax (513) 681-1497.

There is no e-mail or Web address.

Presidential attractions

A: Those are the only two towns in the United States that were the permanent home to two presidents.

John Adams and John Quincy Adams called Quincy home. William Henry Harrison, ninth president and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his great-grandson, Benjamin Harrison, 23rd president, lived in North Bend - along the Ohio River's northern most bend in the southwestern part of the state. It is but a half hour drive west from downtown Cincinnati along U.S. 50 (River Road).

William Henry Harrison's Mausoleum and Memorial Park at the intersection of Brower and Cliff Roads in North Bend lures presidential history buffs as well as sightseers.

Visitors with extra time might want to take a quiet drive along narrow Cliff Road, which offers a breathtaking view of the Ohio River from the steep bluffs above North Bend. Another nearby attraction is Shawnee Lookout, a Hamilton County Park that features native American History and is home to the Conestoga wagon used by the late TV star Ward Bond in the series "Wagon Train." The park has picnic groves, hiking trails and golf.

The Harrison memorial is maintained by the federal government; however, there is no permanent office and no telephone.

Write the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitor's Bureau, 300 W. Sixth St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.

Call 1-800-CINCY-USA.

Grant's birthplace: In a small frame cottage in Point Pleasant, a cozy hamlet along the Ohio River, a future general and president was born to tanner Jesse Grant and his wife, Hannah. The year was 1822.

The infant was christened Hiram Ulysses Grant. But at West Point, that name would be changed to Ulysses Simpson Grant.

A year after his birth, the Grant family moved from the Clermont County river village to nearby Georgetown, Ohio, in neighboring Brown County.

Grant was destined to be named commander of the Union Army by Abraham Lincoln, and it was to Grant that Robert E. Lee surrendered for the Confederacy at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Grant served two terms as president, winning election in 1868 and 1872.

Grant's birthplace at Point Pleasant has been restored and is open to the public. The three-room frame cottage has been furnished with period items.

Point Pleasant is about an hour drive east of Cincinnati on scenic U.S. 52, which wends along the Ohio River. The cottage is open April through October 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1-5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

The birthplace is one of several sites on the "Land of Grant Tour." The automobile tour includes Grant's boyhood home and schoolhouse in Georgetown, 30 minutes northeast of Point Pleasant.

Call the Clermont Convention and Visitor Bureau at (513) 753-7141 or the Ohio Historical Society (614) 297-2300.

Write the historical society at 1982 Velma Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43211.

There is no e-mail or Web address.