If you haven't signed up for one of their walking tours, you are missing out on some cool Milwaukee…read morehistory and trivia. Also, there little store downtown, just blocks from the Public Market, is a great stop for souvenirs and all things 414.

This store is a gem in downtown Milwaukee! It's full of unique items made by Milwaukee artists. The…read moreplace looks like a charming movie set with dark wood bookcases and enticing display tables. Shout out to Kat who pointed me to some great gifts! While I was there, she also managed a tour group, handing out headsets and answering questions with aplomb. I love Historic Milwaukee for their annual Doors Open event in September, and I look forward to visiting the store whenever I'm in the area- just a short walk from the Public Market or the Hop!

I love how easy the skywalk system makes getting around Milwaukee. Each skywalk is a little…read moredifferent, some including an insight into some of the history of Milwaukee or the different neighborhoods. I used to live and work downtown and the skywalks were great for getting around in the winter or inclement weather. Now, only working downtown I find it a great place to go for a walk at lunch or get somewhere.

This is one fun tour. I guess I get a little geeked out when walking around and learning about the…read morehistory of things. For Milwaukee it is no less different. I also did not realize how many Skywalks Milwaukee has. They are scattered throughout and show different views of this great city. The lady who gave the tour was awesome and she really is up on the history of the city. It was an informative tour and we also got a little cardio in to boot. Good stuff!

I am obsessed with Ten Chimneys!!…read more The backstory is fascinating. This wonderful, glamorous Broadway couple found their way to the sweet little mid-west town of Genesee Depot is intriguing on it's own. Their summer home is lovely. I can feel the parties and good times that surely took place in years gone by. Everything has been lovingly preserved by those in charge and offer a wonderful glimpse into this adored couple's lives. The grounds are the perfect backdrop to the home. The entire estate gives off a quiet and relaxing vibe. It makes me understand why, on their time off, they would long to come home to Ten Chimneys. There were 2 tour times offered. Everyone takes a small bus from the starting point. A talented docent brings you on a detailed journey back in time and into the private world of Alfred Lunt and his wife Lynn Fontanne. Of course, there is a gift shop to visit after your tour. Be sure to check out the customer restrooms. The ladies room is glamorous with ladies finery and there is a huge King's throne in the mens room! Don't miss the walking tails if you want to take in a bit more nature!

As a classic film and theater nerd, Ten Chimneys holds a special place in my heart. The former home…read moreof Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the home and grounds are impeccable and just they was as they Lunts left them. Thanks to some love from investors, their stories are preserved and memorialized through the maintenance of Ten Chimneys and the many individuals from all over the world who come to this tiny Wisconsin town to remember them and Hollywood's days gone by. Cross the same threshold that the likes of Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Lawrence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Noel Coward, Alexander Woolcott, and so many others crossed, as you become part of the storied list of visitors. Tours must be arranged in advance.

Want to cruise Lake Michigan affordably and have a boating experience that recreates history? By…read moreall means, get yourself down to Pier Wisconsin pronto and take a sail on the Denis Sullivan. In my mind, this is one of the most amazing experiences the city of Milwaukee offers. Hands down! The Denis Sullivan is a 140-foot sailing vessel that is a recreation of an 1890s cargo vessel. It has space for 50 on its upper deck, three full sails, and three jib sails on the mast. There's a lower compartment that has a head (bathroom), sleeping quarters, kitchen mess, and a gift shop. An exhibit that is part of Discovery World, your ticket buys you a two-hour tour during the summer. Truly, if boating is your thing, this is an amazing must-do. My family and I took the tour recently and we had a blast. The six of us spanned ages from 2 to 73. We all enjoyed it equally. My two year old great niece enjoyed the fact that she had room to roam around to her liking. She wandered everywhere happily. We got pictures of her steering the boat on the rear wheel that controlled the rudder. All of us enjoyed the performance by the ships cast of 8 crew members. They involved all 50 of us on board in a discussion about safety, then gave commands to hoist all of the sails once we had motored comfortably away from the pier and cut the engine. The ropes and sails were neatly and precisely tucked away in a manner any experienced sailor will tell you is proper. Along with other guests, my great niece and her dad helped hoist the sail, and my niece was fascinated with pulling rope for the rest of the trip, "helping" the crew in her own fashion. The crew was on hand to answer questions and quite hospitable with the guests. "This boat is a fiberglass magnet," one crew member told my family, pointing to the boats that pulled up alongside our vessel. They also noted that the boat was weighted in a manner that if it tipped, it would pop back up - a good feature to have on a sailboat that can lean in the wind. A wonderful bonus occurred when two of the crew pulled out a banjo and a fiddle and performed bluegrass music, singing and clapping. My great niece danced and the rest of us enjoyed the performance. The pristine view of Milwaukee's skyline and lakefront is unparalleled. The breeze is cooling and comfortable and the sail is a most enjoyable thing to do on a weekend. Take a trip on the Denis Sullivan. You won't regret it!

A few weeks ago a woman told me the new Pier Wisconsin building adjacent to the Art Museum on the…read morelakefront has the best view of Milwaukee's skyline available without a boat in the city. Intrigued by that and an indoor aquarium, I stopped by this weekend to check it out. Overall, this is a very cool place. The building is beautiful in a modern way that accentuates the Calatrava next door. The lines are clean and nautical and the slat wood floor in the main hallway/promenade was beautiful and different. In general, there is an unfinished feeling to the place despite its having been open more than a month. I can understand the desire to open to the public as soon as possible, but paying $16 for a lot of unfinished exhibits bothered me slightly. That said, there are some wonderful things in this building, which now houses Discovery World, as well as the Pier Wisconsin aquarium and a permanent home for the Denis Sullivan sailboat. The highlight of the aquarium is a tunnel where fish swim a few feet over your head. The glass is so smooth and clear that from certain angles it feels as if you are viewing the image of fish on a hi-definition screen, not actual fish swimming a few feet over your head in a spectacular mega-tank. There is also an open tank for petting small (barbless) stingrays and other fish. We didn't have tons of time to see Discovery World, but needless to say this place is an educational kids heaven. Everything is designed to be touched, felt and understood. In the new (unfinished) techno-jungle area, lots of hip 20-somethings in white lab coats helped kids play and understand a hovering people mover, an inra-red camera, a storm simulator, and best of all, a virtual reality control that led through the streets of Milwaukee. I unfortunately walked right off the bridge over Lincoln Memorial Drive to the Art Museum before surrendering the control to an actual child. Overall, I think Milwaukee has done very well for itself here. The location is amazing, parking easy (underground), the aquarium spectacular and views from the edge of the building are indeed among the best of Milwaukee's lakeside skyline.

Our Guide, Mike, gave an exceptional tour! Saw so many activities, food places, and historical…read moresights in Milwaukee we never knew existed... and we live close by!! Highly recommend this tour, especially if you're looking for the best of what Milwaukee has to offer !!

Mike is really fun and knows his stuff. We had a great time and learned a lot. The tour gives a…read moregood overview of Milwaukee and leaves room for more explodation.

Doors Open Milwaukee is an annual event when over 100 buildings open their doors for free tours…read more Most tours are DIY, but there are many that are docent-led ticketed tours, for more insight. We've done Doors Open for a few years, and in 2017, decided to focus mainly on the clean water industry, which Milwaukee is becoming known for in industry and University circles. Doors Open Milwaukee had a Water Passport, to see if you could hit up all of the sites. Pack some water, a snack, and comfortable shoes, use the helpful PDF guide or app ahead of time to plot out your stops, or pick up a physical booklet on your first stop. Sites we enjoyed in 2017- Global Water Center Milwaukee County Greenhouses UWM School of Freshwater Sciences Mitchell Park Domes An annual event, you can hit up Doors Open Milwaukee every fall. A great annual City event!

Doors Open Milwaukee is wrapping up as I write this, all done for 2016 but if you missed it, don't…read moreworry, it'll be back next year. It's not too early to be thinking about what places you'd like to visit next year. In case this is all new to you, Doors Open Milwaukee is just exactly what the name implies. Many buildings, structures and businesses that aren't usually open to the public throw their "doors open" on the third weekend of September every year. Places might be theaters (Riverside, Modjeska) government buildings (city hall, courthouses, wastewater treatment plant) structures (bascule bridge, lift bridge) cemeteries (Forest Home, Bluemound) Hotels (Pfister, Ambassador) museums (Wadham's gas station, fire museum, Chudnow, MSOE Grohmann) fire houses (Milwaukee, West Allis) and churches of many kinds including the stunning Basilica of St. Josaphat. New on the tour this year was Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, the last commission of Frank Lloyd Wright. Folks in southeastern Wisconsin have been curious about the church since it was built in 1959 and hundreds of people took advantage of the opportunity to see the inside of this magnificent structure. There is a great deal of "right" with DOMKE, although there are a few issues with it, too. One of the more pleasant issues is that there were over 150 places open this year. Too much to see in a weekend, so one much choose carefully. Parking can be an issue around popular venues, as can long lines. It was even tougher this year with on-street parking restricted in many places due to construction. Remember DOMKE for next year, and remember that next spring, Historic Milwaukee will sponsor Spaces & Traces. See you there!

This was our second Food & City Tour. Our first one was a Chicago bus food tour based on "The Bear"…read moreseries. We had a great experience at that tour, so we decided to try the Milwaukee food tour. This one was a walking lunch tour through the Brady Street neighborhood. Our tour guide, Britt, was very friendly and seemed knowledgeable about the history of the neighborhood. She provided some interesting facts along our walk. The restaurant stops provided delicious tastings from their menus. I appreciated that most of the stops provided individual servings allowing everyone to get their fare share of the food and for sanitary reasons. We did enjoy the tour and the walking distance felt doable. Britt made sure everyone was safe and got their food and beverages. My one suggestion would be to check the nearby festivities around the date you are planning to attend. Our tour date was the day after the Brady Street Festival and the street and sidewalks were filled with litter, empty liquor containers and some areas had broken glass on the walkways. Also, some areas that we walked through to get to the 1st meeting destination smelled like urine.

What an awesome experience! Every food stop along the way was fantastic -- we didn't have a single…read morething we didn't enjoy. Our tour guide, Emily, was super sweet, very knowledgeable about the area, and brought such a fun, upbeat energy that made the whole tour exciting. We loved hearing all the fun facts about the buildings we passed and the eateries we visited, which added so much to the experience. As out-of-staters, we never would have thought to explore Brady Street on our own, so it was really cool to discover a whole new part of the city while eating amazing food. Highly recommend!

While visiting some friends in the Wausau area, they suggested we do a Segway tour of Green Bay!…read more We decided on the Packers Heritage Trail Tour! Man, it was so worth it! We learned so much about the town of Green Bay and about the Packers as well! Nick, the owner/tour guide was so awesome and patient with us, as we asked him so many questions, and asked him to take tons of photos of us! If you have never been on a Segway before, no worries, Nick the owner/tour guide or another tour guide will give you an instructive and informative "rules of the road" for a 15 or 20 minute class on how to use the Segway's properly! Each Segway has their own names too!! Like, "Pink Cat", "Claude" and many more!! This is a must do when in the town of Green Bay!!

Had so much fun learning about Green Bay! We were here on a quick trip and our tour guide Al was…read moreincredible. He gave us some food and music insights and was very knowledgeable about the history of the area. We were new to riding a Segway and Al was patient, friendly, and a helpful instructor. We'd like to have a Segway tour of every new city we visit now! Would absolutely do this again in a heartbeat.

My husband and I went on the lake to lake tour with guide Stanley. We we super excited to eat and…read moretour our way through Madison!! We've done 3 walking food tours prior to this one and were excited to add it to our list. There were many things we loved about this tour; Stanley's enthusiasm, the beautiful day and great walking weather, the folks we chatted with on the tour and *most* of the food. The tour was extremely slow to get going. We were all very hungry; eating small breakfasts and no morning snacks in anticipation of a heavy food afternoon. The tour began promptly at 12:30. We spent a very long time in the Convention Center talking about Frank Lloyd Wright. And then when we left the history part of the tour continued for an hour. The first tasting of any food did not happen until a little after 1:30. First stop was Merchant, a funky restaurant/bar, where we were served a Small quarter of a cuban sandwich and a tiny arugula salad dressed in vinaigrette. The Cubano was very good but the serving we seriously tiny. Then we lingered waaaay too long (in my opinion) at the Merchant sitting at the table even though everyone had been done for a while. After the merchant we made Lots of little stops to look at landmarks around the capital area. And we did a little walk through of the capital building, which was very beautiful, but my tummy was still rumbling!!!! 2:22 was our second stop at Fromagination Cheese Shop. This was an absolutely adorable shop with oodles of cheese as well as other gormete food stuffs like cookies, pastries, honey, balsamic vinegar, mustard, jams and jellies and other gift stuff . 3 small pieces of cheese and 2 crackers. There were also a few samples around the store for tasting but really it was a very small food sampling. Shortly after that around 2:44 we made it to Ian's Pizza for a half-slice of Mac and cheese pizza. Ehhh. Did not like it. They had some really cool other kinds and just an awesome menu in general. Just was not into the Mac and Cheese slice. Ick Next up was a little after 3:00 and we stopped at Himal Chuli which was a Nepalese eatery for a Mango Lassi. I was disappointed that we did not get to go inside the restaurant. We just grabbed-and-go our drinks and walked to our next stop. At around 3:17 we stopped into State Street Brats where we were served half to a third of a brat and A half pint of Spotted Cow beer from New Glarus Brewery. Good tasting. But again, a very small sample Lastly we walked to UW campus to the student union for a vanilla malt. It was good. Wish we had gotten to try the ice cream. I'm sure they have some great flavors there. The union was amazing however, right on the lake. Lucky students. The tour ran over, ending around 3:45. My husband and I left still feeling kind of hungry which has NEVER happened to us after a food tour. So, we had a fun time but left with mixed feelings about the tour. Not sure how much we will recommend this one to ours friends. Would rather send them down to the zerve.com food tours in Chicago.

Monroe street tour was wonderful!!, great food all in walking distance!…read moreguide was well educated in Madison history. The food was excellent choices. went to many places I did not know were there! pizza, salad, beligum beer, mussels, so fun! enoyed every moment, if you live in madison or visiting this tour is a must!!

Enjoyed the Dive Bar tour with Dave! Great experience and a lot of fun. A must do in Milwaukee!read more

I was visiting Milwaukee for business and only had a few hours to spare to explore the city. City…read moreTours MKE was fantastic! My tour only had myself and one other couple so the tour was intimate, educational, and fulfilling. I learned so much about the history, architecture and best spots to eat, drink and shop. I would highly recommend this tour! Plus the electric car is super cool!