Experience the best of Bloomington

Bloomington is a city of leafy suburbs on the north bank of the Minnesota River, just south of Minneapolis and beside the international airport. It is best known for Mall of America, which opened in 1992 and combines hundreds of shops with an amusement park, an aquarium and a theatre. Most of the city is residential, with lakes, golf courses and parks, and the Hyland Lake Park Reserve has a nature centre, trails and a ski hill.

Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge has a visitor centre in Bloomington and trails across river bottomland where bald eagles, herons and turtles live. Fort Snelling, an army fort of the 1820s at the meeting of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, lies a few kilometres north, and Minnehaha Falls, a waterfall of sixteen metres made famous by Longfellow's Hiawatha, is in Minneapolis. Downtown Minneapolis and St Paul are a short ride away.

Wild rice soup, hotdish, walleye and cheese curds are Minnesota staples, and the Juicy Lucy, a burger with the cheese cooked inside, comes from the Twin Cities' bars. Winters are cold and long, with plenty of snow, and summers are warm.