We crossed one of the 28 bridges in the city on our way to our next stop, the Wisconsin Cheese Mart. My only complaint about the tour came here. The following stop after the Cheese Mart was Usinger’s Famous Sausage. The Cheese Mart and Usinger’s should have been combined to make a beer/cheese/sausage stop! Just kidding, Theresa!

The itinerary included information about Père Marquette, RiverWalk, Milwaukee City Hall being the third tallest building in the US at the time it was built, that German names still comprise nearly half of those in the city phonebook, with 43 pages of those whose names begin with “Sch.” Concurrently with the influx of Germans, the first foreign immigrants to the area, was the printing of seven German-language newspapers in the city, while at the same time there were only two English-language papers.

Old World Third Street, our next stop, is like stepping back into the Old World, Europe, and particularly Germany, and there are still German-language signs in some of the shops, advertising that English is spoken! The Cheese Mart offers over 700 different cheese items, including an exquisite 12-year-old cheddar, while Usinger’s offers over 70 different types of sausages, most still made by the original recipes, as well as newer varieties, such as Cajun. While at Usinger’s, just be sure you don’t enter a door marked “Elves Only!” That’s a part of the tour you’ll have to have Theresa tell you about.

The next stop was Mader’s Restaurant, one of the better local German restaurants, where we sampled mini-Reuben sandwiches, one of their many Teutonic specialties, washing it down with a fine local brew, a Maibock. The restaurant is third-generation, and Mader’s was one of the stops when Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany was brought here by President Clinton.

Our final stop was, appropriately, dessert, when we stopped at The Chocolate Tree. We’ve all heard of German Chocolate Cake, but how many people know it came from Milwaukee? The cake took its name from Sam German, a local chocolatier who developed what later became Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate, and still later changed to Baker’s German Sweet Chocolate. We sampled their Ambrosia Chocolate, using the recipe named after the chocolate factory that once stood on this very street, and which made the original. Ambrosia is still found, although mostly in bakery supply stores.

This was a fun and interesting tour, and we probably walked far enough to work off most of those scrumptious calories we ingested. I can’t wait for my next tour!