Day 6—Our full day in Milwaukee

We had a full day planned for Thursday in Milwaukee. We were doing a food tour from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm with Milwaukee Food Tours, and we were scheduled to take an afternoon historical boat cruise on the Milwaukee River with Edelweiss Cruises. I say scheduled because they called that morning and canceled. I asked for the reason for the cancellation, and they said we were the only ones signed up for that day’s tour. Sorry, but if you have people signed up, you go. That’s a contract with those people. Sadly, the only other river tour company operated only on weekends, and we would be on our ship by then. If you plan a trip with Edelweiss, don't go on a weekday.

But that’s the way it goes. We woke up to another day of rain in the forecast, but we didn't let it deter us. We Lyfted over to the Milwaukee Public Market (above) to meet our guide, Paul. First, let me say that Paul is an awesome guide. He's not only good at talking about Milwaukee, but you can tell he loves his hometown. It really shows. He is also a photographer and teaches photography, so he and I had a lot in common.

We had booked the Streetcar Food Tour, which we learned means you try an appie (cheese curds—a Wisconsin delicacy) at one place, move to Apertivo restaurant for your lunch entrée, and then go somewhere else for dessert. Along the way, you board Milwaukee’s free streetcar, known as The Hop, and Paul gives you a tour of Milwaukee along the entire route. Great idea, right? It does work great right up until you get on the streetcar (which runs on rails), when someone parks their car over those rails, so you sit in one spot for about half an hour while they try to get a tow truck to tow the truck.

They finally gave up and let us off. We were supposed to have toured the entire city in that time and come back to a spot about a block away. So we walked that block and had dessert at a Belgian restaurant. Something decadent and chocolate. By the time we were done, two things had happened. We had reached the end of our time with Paul, and the streetcar had started running again. We decided to take it and see what we could of the town, but Paul insisted that he was going to come along and spend another 45 minutes telling us all about his town. Talk about going above and beyond—a truly great guy and guide.

After we got back from the tour, we were kind of happy the boat tour had been canceled because we were supposed to have had a good two hours between the two, but after the delay, we would have had to transition to the boat almost immediately. As it was, we went back to the hotel; Cathy, Mike, Kathleen, and I went out to a Mediterranean place for dinner and then hit the hay.

Here are some pics I took that day. Mostly food and such. Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE... don't look at my photography on a phone. Please...