Tag Archives: lake Geneva

“Did I hear you say ‘Lake Geneva?’” I asked another volunteer at a Chicago soup kitchen. Sure enough! And here’s her recommendations, just in time for our summer visit!

1. Pay the parking meters—they’re ticket happy!

2. Simple Bakery in downtown Lake Geneva. A couple of blocks from main drag, but great pastries!

3. Lake path—start at LG public library, follow walk along lake west, away from downtown. At the end, you’ll see restrooms, the lake path begins. No restrooms on path. This path is amazing, clean, along 26 miles around the lake, passing huge summer homes, beaches, old camps. At times we were walking on a narrow path through someone’s waist-high gardens, other times under shady canopies of trees.

4. Green Grocer in Williams Bay for lunch, sandwich.

5. Farmers Market on Thursday in front of Horticultural Hall. 8-1 pm

6. Papa’s Blue Spruce for local vibe, incredible smash burgers. Done! The Cheese smashBurgers were as good as advertised at this spot overlooking Lake Como, smaller and quieter than Geneva. The talk of the town was the July 3-4 storm that tore up trees, knocked out power for days.There was also a horrible boating accident on Lake Geneva.

7. Pier 290 for dinner—on the water

8. Williams Bay public beach – DONE. Pleasant but we’re spoiled by the soft sand and clear water of Lake Michigan at Weko beach in Bridgman, Michigan. The sand here was closer to dirt and there were weeds in the deeper part of the swim area.

We also wandered around Camp Wandewega in nearby Elkhorn, a former summer camp from the 1920s that offers lodging via Airbnb in old cabins. The retro vibe felt like a Wes Anderson film set. The cabins look humble from the outside but apparently have high-end backwoods decor and are pricey. Lake Wandewega was refreshingly sleepy, especially compared to bustling Lake Geneva but lots of algae bloom.

We learned a new unflattering acronym from the Wisconsin Democrats while in the Lake Geneva area last weekend, canvassing for Kamala Harris and other Democrats. F–king Illinois B–tards is the unaffectionate name for big city slickers who drive their fancy cars up to this area, known by some as the Hamptons of Chicago or the Newport of the Midwest. Then again, those slickers spend money in Wisconsin so maybe its best to define FIBS – as one kind Wisconsite told me – as Fantastic Illinois Babes.

It feels new (and odd) to be viewed as a city slicker, since we’ve been in Chicago for just over two years. Living for 32 years in Iowa, we were never in danger of being labeled city or slick (although we did live in the city of Des Moines). Ditto for the 4 years or so lived in Kansas City and Wichita.

After knocking on doors for several hours, we did a little scouting of visitor spots, enough to make us want to come back as tourists, if not FIBs. There’s an astonishing old observatory in a historic building that we’re told offers fantastic if pricy tours. Yerkes Observatory is billed as the birthplace of modern astrophysics, frequented by Einstein and Carl Sagan (who taught at Cornell when I was there.) We drove right up to it, although it was closed for a private event. Definitely on my to-visit list. We also drove down to Fontana-on-the-Lake and Wilson where some of the old money estates appear to be. We couldn’t get very close to Black Point Estate and Gardens. Apparently visitors can only get there by taking a boat tour. (Geneva Cruise Line’s 3.5 private tour.)

Other things to do/see on my list: the Mail Boat Run, Geneva Lake Shore Path, Simple Cafe.

We did find some exclusive-looking lakeside communities – the Harvard Club and the Chicago Club – that reminded me of similar lovely but sometimes snobbish and restrictive communities in northern Michigan around Harbor Springs and Petosky. No thank you. We stopped at an upscale market, Big Foot, in the area for coffee and later, over the Illinois border at an unsupervised organic market that runs on the honor system and has a creative potato storage system.

Good resources for future reference: https://www.travelandleisure.com/lake-geneva-wisconsin-travel-guide-8622409

And:

6 Ways to Spend a Rainy Day in Lake Geneva