Spent the day exploring the sights of Springfield, State Capital of Illinois and power base of Abraham Lincoln.

His former house is now a national park and exists much as it did when Lincoln lived there for around 20 years, while practicing law in the courts in the state house just up the road. The rooms are much as they were when Abe and Mary lived here and you can imagine them entertaining visitors and bringing up their young family.

His presidential Library and museum is also in the city, containing a mix of historical relics, such as his stovepipe hat complete with fingerprints where he doffed it to ladies, and a strange disney type reconstruction of his life, where waxworks show young Abe reading by the fire in his one room shack in Kentucky. There are some very good presentations which tell of the vents of his life.

He certainly made an impression and is best known for his emancipation proclamation, which freed the slaves, something which cost him his life just after his second term of office began. His body was brought back to springfield by train, where it now rests in a stately tomb at the centre of the cemetery.