Milwaukee, Cedarburg & Frank Lloyd Wright's Spring Green

One of the most architecturally important museum buildings in America — Santiago Calatrava's 2001 Quadracci Pavilion, with movable 217-foot wings that open and close daily at noon, sits at the edge of Lake Michigan as one of the defining works of contemporary architecture. The collection of over 30,000 works includes a strong German Expressionist holding and the most comprehensive collection of Georgia O'Keeffe paintings outside of New Mexico.

The definitive institution for American motorcycle culture — over 450 motorcycles spanning the full history of the Milwaukee company, from the 1903 Serial Number One prototype to the current lineup. The 130,000-square-foot museum covers the engineering history, the social history of the motorcycle community, and the pop culture mythology that grew around the brand.

An indoor marketplace in Milwaukee's arts district — Wisconsin cheeses, Lake Michigan smoked fish, local charcuterie, and fresh baked goods under one roof. The adjacent Third Ward neighborhood has the most concentrated cluster of galleries, design studios, and independent restaurants in the city.

The former wholesale warehouse district of Milwaukee has been entirely repurposed as galleries, design studios, and creative businesses — the Brady Street Corridor and the Third Ward's cement-floored commercial buildings host the city's working visual art community.

The 1892 German Renaissance Revival mansion built by brewing magnate Captain Frederick Pabst — a 37-room brick mansion with painted tile imported from Germany, carved wood paneling, and a collection of Flemish art assembled by Pabst himself. A vivid picture of the wealth generated by Milwaukee's 19th-century brewing industry.

A Milwaukee restaurant built around fermenting, preserving, and sourcing from Wisconsin farms — the menu changes seasonally and the charcuterie and pickles program is excellent. One of the best kitchens in Milwaukee and a model for the kind of Wisconsin ingredient-focused cooking the city now does well.

The best-preserved small Wisconsin town of the 1840s limestone era — the entire main street and adjacent residential blocks are built of the creamy local limestone quarried from Cedar Creek, giving Cedarburg a visual coherence unusual for any American small town. The original woolen mill, grist mill, winery, and a dozen original commercial buildings still function.

The 1864 woolen mill in Cedarburg that now houses antique dealers, galleries, a winery, and a cheese shop in its original limestone-and-timber floors — the best preserved historic mill interior in the upper Midwest. The Cedarburg Winery in the basement has been making fruit wines since the 1970s and the tasting room still uses the original mill's stone foundation.

A Cedarburg restaurant in an 1847 limestone building above Cedar Creek — creative Wisconsin cuisine with local ingredients, fresh bread, and an excellent cheeseburger made with aged Wisconsin cheddar. The outdoor terrace above the creek is the best lunch seat in Ozaukee County.

Port Washington's 1935 art deco lighthouse stands at the end of a 1,000-foot concrete pier extending into Lake Michigan — the walk out to the lighthouse gives a sense of the lake's scale and the historic significance of the port, which once shipped enormous quantities of fish and grain to Chicago. The bluff above town provides the best view of the breakwater and the full harbor.

Housed in a 1948 art deco building overlooking the harbor, the museum documents Port Washington's history as one of the great commercial fishing ports on Lake Michigan. The collection of Great Lakes commercial fishing equipment and the photographs of the German immigrant community that worked the lake are exceptional.

A Port Washington restaurant overlooking Lake Michigan — Wisconsin fish fry on Fridays (lake perch, haddock, potato pancakes, coleslaw) and a rotating Wisconsin-sourced menu the rest of the week. The lake view is the best in any Milwaukee-area restaurant.

Frank Lloyd Wright spent most of his working life at Taliesin, the 600-acre estate in the Wyoming Valley he began building in 1911 and rebuilt twice after fires. The estate includes the main house, the Hillside drafting studio, the Tan-y-deri house, and the Midway Farm — each demonstrating Wright's core principle of organic architecture grown from its landscape rather than imposed on it. The four-hour estate tour is the most comprehensive architectural experience in the Midwest.

An outdoor classical theater in a wooded amphitheater in the Spring Green hills — Shakespeare, Shaw, and contemporary plays performed in a natural setting that Wright himself would have approved of. Afternoon matinees available; the walk through the forest to the theater is part of the experience.

A well-regarded Wisconsin supper club in a converted 1916 round dairy barn in the Wyoming Valley — farm-sourced beef and pork, perch and walleye from Wisconsin lakes, and a dessert cart still pushed tableside. A direct continuation of the Wisconsin tradition Wright himself celebrated in his design philosophy.

A one-room schoolhouse designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1956 as a gift to the Spring Green community — a small, precise building that demonstrates Wright's domestic-scale design principles as clearly as any of his larger works. Often open for gallery exhibitions.