City weekends
Rah Rah Rochester
The quiet medical giant may be sterile, but it's also engaging.
In Rochester, a tourist from the Twin Cities is a novelty.
Tourists from anywhere are a novelty, though patients and medical professionals come from around the world.
“This week, I had customers from Guatemala, Panama and India in just a few hours,’’ said Kathy Barnes, a
fourth-grade teacher who works part-time at the apparel shop Collections.
Halloween in Chicago
During scary season, this fun-loving city pulls out all the stops.
In high-spirited Chicago, Halloween is the most spirited weekend of the year.
We didn’t know that before we arrived last year, but then a few thousand Smurfs, zombies and cowboys bicycled past us
on the monthly Critical Mass ride through Lincoln Park.
A pirate skull was perched on the turnips the next morning at the farmers market, and we saw oversized ghouls and witches waving from the windows of mansions. Downtown, orange gushers rose from the fountain in Franken Plaza, known as Daley Plaza the rest of the year.
Into the belly of Chicago
A food tour points us toward pizza, candies, spice and everything nice.
Once, Chicago was a meat-and-potatoes town, the City of Broad Shoulders.
Chicagoans still brawl over who has the best deep-dish pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs, which come with no ketchup but so many condiments they're “dragged through the garden.’’
But these days locals are just as likely to seek out the best macarons and gelato, and on special occasions, they dine at Michelin-starred restaurants with avant-garde chefs who are more Jeff Koons than Betty Crocker.
Milwaukee at Christmas
During the holidays, this city shimmers like Cinderella.
No one ever accused Milwaukee of being flashy.
Best known for tractors, motorcycles and beer, it’s a meat-and-potatoes kind of town, stolid and practical like the Germans who built it.
It’s not what you’d call a trendy destination. And yet every time I go there, I have a great time.
Party in Milwaukee
Summer is one long festival in this unsung city on Lake Michigan.
Once, I thought of Milwaukee as the ugly duckling of Midwest cities, a colorless runt with the grit of Chicago but none of its allure.
Silly me.
It’s true that downtown Milwaukee, during the day, is not exactly flashy. It's best to drive right past its dumpy gray office buildings, bypassing even the popular Milwaukee Public Museum on my way to the neighborhoods between the Milwaukee River and the shores of Lake Michigan.
Chicago at Christmas
During the holidays, this glittering, festive town becomes the City of Broad Smiles.
Visiting Chicago during the holidays, I'm always bowled over by how merry everyone is.
Can it be . . . Chicago Nice? It's either that or pixie dust.
Chicago is an exciting place to be any time, but at Christmas, it pulls out the stops. The Magnificent Mile sparkles. Ice
skaters do pirouettes in Millennium Park. There are free concerts everywhere.
On the river in Minneapolis
The energy first created by a waterfall has returned to this Mill City district.
The Falls of St. Anthony wasn't a very tall waterfall.
But it was broad and thundering, and the only major drop on the Mississippi. More importantly, it got good PR from two best-selling travel guides, Father Louis Hennepin's 1683 "Description de la Louisiane'' and Jonathan Carver's 1778 "Travels through the Interior Parts of North-America,'' both of which exaggerated its height.
Other explorers came, and in the 1820s ordinary tourists followed the first steamboats up the Mississippi, where they admired the falls, gawked at the Dakota living in nearby tepees and dined on such Wild West delicacies as buffalo, elk and sturgeon.
Summer in Madison
In warm months, head for the brewpubs and bicycle paths of this exuberant college town.
In summer, it's hard to know what to do first in beer- and bicycle-loving Madison.
Bike along Lake Monona, or on the Capital City State Trail? Have a beer and listen to blues on the lakeside terrace of the Memorial Union, or in the Bier Garten of Capital Brewery?
In summer, this college town is in its element. Its Great Taste of the Midwest in August is the largest beer festival in Wisconsin and the second-longest running craft-beer festival in North America.
Going to Kansas City
Blues and barbecue are just bonuses in this vibrant but easygoing town.
Aside from its barbecue and jazz, most people know little about Kansas City.
But when I went there one April, I found much more than saxophones and spare ribs. Around every corner there are beautiful
fountains, sculptures and tiers of flowers.
There are blues and swing and folk in clubs open till 3 a.m. There are microbreweries and boiled crawfish by the pound and Cinderella carriages clopping through streets lined by Spanish haciendas.
Chicago as you like it
Beaches or museums, baseball or music — this fun-loving metropolis makes it hard to decide what to do first.
Chicago is like one big theme park. The thing is, you have to bring your own theme.
I have one every time I go there: Blues and bicycling. Museums and dim sum. Skyscrapers and food tours.
That's because the possibilities are endless. There's so much to do in Chicago that it's easy to bounce around like a kid in a candy store, overwhelmed by choices, as time runs out.
Madison for all ages
Famous for collegians, Wisconsin's capital also fascinates children.
If it wasn't for the climate, Peter Pan would feel right at home in Madison, Wis.
It's the NeverNeverland of the Midwest, a town whose zany exuberance is appreciated by everyone but Republicans, whose
outnumbered governor once called it "57 square miles surrounded by reality.''
Inhabited largely by college students whose political zealotry is matched only by their zeal for a party, downtown Madison is a place where it's easy to get in touch with your inner child.
Chicago with kids
For curious children, this inviting city overflows with treasures.
To a would-be tour guide, Chicago is as shifty as a kaleidoscope.
The city has so many facets, in so many splendid configurations, that no one can predict what anyone — especially
children — will like best.
During spring break, my friend Rebecca and I took our children to Chicago, with an itinerary that cunningly alternated visits
to museums with visits to zoos and parks.
A jolly holiday in Minneapolis
A lighted parade draws tourists and locals alike into the lively heart of the city.
During the holidays, there's no place like home. In fact, it's the perfect getaway.
Every year, I go to downtown Minneapolis to see the Holidazzle parade. I get tickets for Handel's "Messiah" at Orchestra Hall. I hunt for stocking stuffers on Nicollet Mall.
I don't stay overnight. I live here, after all.
Pinching pennies in Chicago
It's easy to save money in this lively town . . . and to spend it, too.
If you love to visit Chicago, as we do, you have a compelling reason to look for discounts when you’re visiting — the more you save, the sooner you can return.
We traveled there over Memorial Day weekend, but we started looking for savings months in advance. First, I arranged a home
exchange, so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel.
Then we signed up for the Chicago Dealradar, a digest of dozens of daily coupon deals. Then we started looking for free things to do.
Shopping in Madison
In this colorful college town, materialism and muckraking co-exist.
In Madison, a visitor is exposed to many messages: Resist corporate globalization. Fight for social justice. Housing is a RIGHT!
But when I was there one November, no one said anything against materialism.
Madison — sometimes called the People’s Republic of Madison — is so anti-establishment and anti-corporate
that a Starbuck’s caused an uproar when it opened on State Street.
Cheap Chicago
Here are 10 tips to make a trip to the Windy City easy to afford.
Chicago is on a roll. Millennium Park is wildly popular, and the city has been crowned the western White House.
But long before Barack Obama made Chicago cool by association, people had noticed that it's a whole lot of fun. These days, tourists have to compete with hordes of conventioneers and suburbanites fleeing back to the city. Prices, of course, have gone up.
But Chicago is a populist town, and there's lots to do for free. Here are 10 tips for making a trip affordable.
Chain of Lakes in Minneapolis
The lakes, river and creeks that ring this metropolis are a magnet year-round.
Every big city has skyscrapers. Every big city has museums and monuments. But no other city has as many beautiful lakes and parks Minneapolis does.
Early in the city's history, when its lakes still were considered swampy boondocks, city fathers decided to make their shores
public property.
Today, the most expensive homes in the city face the lakes, but the public — in-line skaters, bicyclists, dog-walkers — owns the shorelines.
Skyscraper city
For architecture fans, Chicago is the place to walk and gawk.
In Chicago, there’s great people-watching — but the building-watching is even better.
The city is best known for humongous buildings — the Willis (Sears) Tower, Hancock Center, Aon Building. But clustered around their knees are others that attract tourists from all over the world, buildings with so much flair it’s tempting to give them personalities.
There’s Helmut Jahn’s Thompson Center, the brassy showgirl with the heart of gold, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Federal Plaza, the geek with the thick black glasses.
Whiskey and cherubs
In downtown St. Paul, a cluster of family attractions make the city's origins a distant memory.
It's ironic, considering its past, that St. Paul is such a wholesome destination.
Liquor brought the first white resident to Minnesota's capital; he was Pierre Parrant, a swinish, one-eyed former voyageur named Pig's Eye. He set up his first tavern near Fort Snelling, but was rousted in 1837 by officers who were tired of the trouble it caused.
The hovel he built in a cave down river was St. Paul's first building, and the area around the tavern he built later, in the
future downtown, was known briefly as Pig's Eye.
Globe-trotting in Chicago
Colorful neighborhoods are a window into other worlds.
One Memorial Day weekend, my friend Grace and I went to tour "ethnic'' Chicago. But we'd only been there a few hours before we realized everything about Chicago is ethnic.
Chicago is a mosaic, a city of neighborhoods settled by waves of immigrants who arrived to dig its waterways, build its railroads and work in its slaughterhouses. One of its first neighborhoods was Bridgeport, settled by Irish canal workers in the 1840s and the stronghold of Mayor Richard J. Daley and his son Richard M. Daley, the current mayor.
It was followed by Little Italy, Germantown, the Swedish enclave of Andersonville, Polish Village, Ukrainian Village, Chinatown, Greek Town, Bronzeville, the East Indian zone on Devon Avenue and Pilsen, a Czech quarter that now is heavily Hispanic.
© Beth Gauper, 2007 - 2012 all rights reserved
