Madison,+WI


 * Travel Tips for Madison, WI:**
 * Madison Wikitravel Website:** []
 * Wisconsin Wikitravel Website**: []
 * Wisconsin Dells Wikitravel Website**: []
 * Wisconsin Dells Wikitravel Website**: []


 * Mike Summers - November 2013:**

Madison Airport (MSN), also known as Dane County Regional Airport is served by United, American, Delta, and Frontier. Frontier usually uses Gate 8, and its ticket counter is between United and American Airlines. The airport is located five miles northeast of downtown Madison (Website: [] ). Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Hertz, and National all are found in the airport. (Dane County Regional Airport You Tube Video: [] ). Rental car counters are located at the baggage claim area. The rental car lot is located outside at Door # 6. If you want to catch the Madison Metro Bus (Website: www.mymetrobus.com ), go outside at Door # 6 and look for the bus stop sign on the roadway median. Bus Route 20 runs between the North Transfer Point and East Towne Mall via the Airport every thirty minutes during weekdays, and hourly weeknights, weekends and holidays. For service from the Airport to downtown Madison or the UW campus area, __passengers should board buses reading "Route 20 - North Transfer Point."__ Buses reading "Route 20 - East Towne Mall" would carry passengers to points east of the airport, including the MATC campus area, and eventually, East Towne Mall. If in doubt, ask the driver. At the North Transfer Point, catch the Route 2 Bus that will take you Downtown and the University of Wisconsin Campus. The base fare is $2.00. You can also purchase an all-day pass for $4.00 from the driver. Many area hotels may have a courtesy vehicle to handle transportation to or from the Dane County Regional Airport. You may use the courtesy phone located at the hotel board between Bag Claims 1 and 2, to contact them and make your connection with a hotel shuttle. Hotel and courtesy vans pick up passengers at Door # 5; there is a shelter on the roadway median. You can also fly into Milwaukee, rent a car, and drive one and one half hours on Interstate 94 to Madison. Madison is in a very picturesque setting with the major downtown section being on a narrow stretch of land between two large lakes. Lake Mendota to the Northwest and Lake Monona to the Southeast. There are parks and trails along the shores of each lake. You cannot come to Madison without seeing the Wisconsin Sate Capital Building. It resembles our nation's capital building in Washington DC. The State Capitol is 284 feet high. It is an impressive sight and just recently became a national historic building. The grounds are beautiful anytime of year, but especially in spring/summer when the flowers are in bloom. You can tour the building for free or you can drive around in circles like some tourists do until they finally decide to turn onto a street. The exterior of the building is made entirely of white Bethel Vermont granite, which looks like marble to most people. The dome is the focal point of the Capitol building. It is 162 feet tall. Three observation decks encircle the outer dome. The lowest observation deck is open to the public during the summer. The four wings of the Capitol face the four diagonal streets of Madison. If you want to see a gorgeous sunset, head to Tenney Park (Website: [] ) along Sherman Avenue. Park your car and walk beyond the lighthouse by the lake -- not bad for a Midwestern sunset! From this park during the summer months on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, you can take ninety minute pontoon boat rides onto Lake Mendota. All trips begin and end at Tenney Park Boat Pier, which is located at 1615 Sherman Street. The cost is $5.00. There are no reservations; it's first come, first served. You pay at the dock (Website: [] ). If you want to rent a bicycle, check out the Yellow Jersey (Website: [] ) at 419 State Street. It's located right in the middle of the block. Make sure that you get a lock and don't ever leave a bike unlocked. There are many bike path options, but two favorites are: Lake Monona Loop - you go all the way around Lake Monona, about 13 miles round trip. About half of it is on lightly traveled roads, and the other half is on bike trails. Go clockwise and keep the lake on your right and you won't get lost. A second favorite is the Lakeshore Path. It starts at the Memorial Union on the lake and goes to Picnic point. Total distance is about six miles. A dirt path takes you to the end, where you can get a great view of the isthmus and capital. Being a college town, Madison is blessed with many watering holes. These bars, taverns, clubs, and pubs are mainly located on State Street, which is located between the State Capital Building and the University. There are many different places to choose from. From college bars frequented by college students, to a dance club housed in an historic theater building, the Orpheum, to restaurants-turned-nightclubs after dinner hours like Madison Masala and Spice's Kitchen. Every nightlife option found on State Street is unique in its own way and these provide a tremendous choice for night crawlers. The Opus Lounge was voted one of the best places to get cozy and intimate with your partner by the //Isthmus//, Madison's weekly publication. Opus Lounge (Website: [] ) is smartly and tastefully decorated and features one of the most extensive drink list in the city and it changes according to seasons so you won't get bored. Opus Lounge also serves desserts and lounge snacks that varies according to seasons as well, but the to-die-for fondues are ever-present. Service is friendly and attentive, yet unobtrusive. During certain days of the week, DJs mixes up down tempo and lounge jazz music. The only drawback is the small size of the lounge. It gets very crowded especially during weekends and seats are hard to find. The Crystal Corner Bar is a neighborhood bar that brings people to town (Website: [] ). Sometimes, they have a cover charge of $5.00. This bar is infamous for a great variety of good music: string ensembles, honky tonk, rock or jazz. The Vintage Spirits and Grill (Website: [] ) is a nice bar with reasonably priced drinks and a very nice patio. The patio is on a fairly busy street with plenty of late night foot traffic. There are heat lamps for when it gets a bit chilly. Inside there are plenty of booths and a couple of couches. A feature of this bar is the "Redneck Buffet" where for $15 dollars you can get a tee shirt for eating a pickled egg, pickled pork hock and a pickled turkey gizzard and drinking a can of Hamms beer. State Street Brats (Website: [] ) is not home to your typical happy hour. The price of each beer changes according to how many are sold, or by some in-house calculation. How do you know what the price is? They have a stock ticker thing that runs constantly alerting you to the price of the beer. You want a Leinies Honey Weis, check the ticker and discover that the price just jumped from $2.00 a pint to $3.75. But wait, Capitol Island Wheat just went form $4.00 to $1.55 a pint. So buy one of those instead. It's kind of fun, and you can always find a good beer for $2.00 or less. Prices seem to change every fifteen minutes. They also have a nice seating area outside, and they show games on the somewhat big screens. So you can sit outside, watch a baseball game, World Cup game, whatever. Nice. There's a large variety of food; it is a Brat Haus after all. Fries are real good and spicy. Graze is another nice restaurant that (Website: [] ) is an outstanding brewpub/casual restaurant on Madison's Capitol Square, a sister running to the starry "L'Etoile" next door. Graze offers a full complement of outstanding home brews, as well as interesting and tasty versions of standard bar fare. Cheese is a whiz here, not surprisingly, and the cheese curds are so good that you'll think that they are a gourmet specialty. The space makes the place, though - enormously high ceilings and a bright ambience that makes it hard to have a bad time here. Also on the Capital Square is the Old Fashioned (Website: [] ) where they serve great food and serve over 150 different Wisconsin beers (50 on tap). On Wednesday nights they have //Band-in-a-Box Karaoke with Lars.// Truly fun and funny. On the southwestern side of town is the Vintage Brewery (Website: [] ). Really good beer, nice thin crust pizza, and live music make this a fun place. It was busy late on a Wednesday night. We sat at the bar and took it all in. Another great place close to the Capital building is the Great Dane Pub & Brewery on Doty Street (Website: [] ). There's two other locations in Madison, but we visited the original. I enjoyed their Pumpkin Beer while Laura like their Wizen. This location has the main bar, a basement bar, an outside beer garden, a pool table area, and a large dining area. We enjoyed ourselves. We also visited the Comedy Club on State (Website: [] ) on a Thursday night where admission was $8.00 -- a real deal. They had four comics through the night entertain the crowd. As for lodging, I would recommend Priceline, Hotels.com, or Hotwire. You'll save some money and still get a nice hotel at reasonable prices. Always check the reviews of people who have stayed and remember, 10% of people always have a problem with something. We stayed at the Hilton by the Capital (Website: [] ). Our friends stayed at the Sheraton, which was about two miles from downtown (Website: [] ). There was a walking/biking trail that connected the hotel to downtown, but they drove. Have fun while visiting Madison, we did.