Wine Country, Madison & Frank Lloyd Wright Country

Open the trip at this southern Wisconsin winery producing cold-climate varietals — Marquette, La Crescent, and St. Croix — in a welcoming tasting room that offers a relaxed introduction to the state's emerging wine identity before the drive to the state park.

Fuel up at a Wisconsin original — ButterBurgers, cheese curds, and Concrete Mixers from the chain founded in Sauk City in 1984 that has become the unofficial state fast food.

Walk the 36 miles of trails in this northern Illinois park set around two glacial lakes — the path around Pierce Lake offers prairie restoration sections and wetland boardwalks with good birding before the evening drive to Beloit.

Eat and drink at Beloit's most popular craft brewery — rotating seasonals, wood-fired pub food, and a convivial taproom before the drive to Madison.

Overnight in Beloit — a practical basecamp between the winery country and the Madison Capitol drive tomorrow morning.

Arrive at the Wisconsin State Capitol — a granite and limestone beaux-arts dome larger than the US Capitol, surrounded by one of the country's best farmers markets on Saturday mornings. State Street connects the capitol to the University of Wisconsin campus along a pedestrian corridor of independent bookshops, coffee roasters, and music venues that defines Madison's progressive urban character.

Lunch at this beloved Madison cafe near the campus — farm-to-table sandwiches, grain bowls, and daily hot specials in a sunny space that draws a mix of professors, students, and Capitol Hill staffers.

Explore one of the largest university art museums in the country — 23,000 objects spanning ancient Greek ceramics, European old masters, a strong American photography collection, and a contemporary wing that regularly hosts solo exhibitions of national significance. Admission is free.

Dinner at this Capitol Square institution — a Wisconsin supper club format with all-state sourcing, venison and walleye alongside brandy old fashioneds, in a boisterous room directly across from the capitol.

Stay at this campus-adjacent boutique hotel steps from the Chazen and Lake Mendota — the Wisconsin Badger memorabilia-laden rooms put you 30 minutes from Spring Green and Taliesin in the morning.

Tour the 800-acre hilltop estate Frank Lloyd Wright built, rebuilt, and lived in from 1911 until his death in 1959 — the house, studio, drafting rooms, and farm complex he called his 'autobiography written in wood and stone and brick.' The house tour follows the labyrinthine sequence of low-ceilinged rooms that explode into double-height spaces, with every view to the Wisconsin River valley framed as deliberately as a painting. The Hillside School of Architecture portion shows the working studio where Wright trained apprentices in his Usonian ideal.

Lunch in Spring Green's main-street dining room — seasonal Wisconsin cooking in a relaxed, unpretentious space popular with Taliesin tour visitors and Wisconsin River canoeists.

Visit the eccentric marvel Alex Jordan built atop a 60-foot chimney of rock beginning in 1945 — a house that expanded over decades into a labyrinth of rooms stuffed with the world's largest carousel (with 269 animals, none of them horses), automated music machines, a 200-foot-long infinity room cantilevered over the valley, rooms of antique weapons, dollhouses, suits of armor, and Tiffany glass. A delirious foil to the disciplined genius of Taliesin just five miles up the road.