Lion's Den Gorge and Our First Night in Port Washington

After visiting Holy Hill on a blustery cloudy cold morning, the sun came out and the temperatures really warmed up:  just in time for a short hike in Lion's Den Gorge!

Lion's Den Gorge is a 73 acre Nature Preserve in Ozaukee County.  You have your choice of  several different hiking trails.  You can view a marshland, take a handicapped accessible trail through the woods, or enjoy a half mile of 90-100 foot bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan...which is what we did!  Just look at these views!

The trail started on this well-maintained boardwalk. 

Very shortly we were treated to this beautiful view!

The trail we took also went through a shady forest.

There were pretty bridges to cross.

Then it was time to descend down all these steps into the gorge!  These steps lead you right to the beach!

It was fun getting off the trail and getting so close to the water.  Here is a short video where you can hear the waves of Lake Michigan.

Now it was time to climb back up those stairs (which was not as fun as climbing down) to get back on the trail and back to our car.  We decided to take the handicap accessible trail back because it was shorter and easier.  This trail is straight and flat, but doesn't offer the cliff side views of the bluff trail.

The map below shows all the trails at the nature preserve.  The curving trail running alongside Lake Michigan was the one we took at the beginning.  This is the trail with the views, but both trails will take you to the gorge.  We then took the one-way trail (steps) down into the gorge, but on our return trip we took the handicap accessible trail (which is the straight line) back. 

By now it was late afternoon and it was time to reach our final destination for the weekend:  Port Washington.  We booked two nights at this gorgeous historic hotel located downtown.  Once we parked our car, we never moved it again until it was time to go home for everything was in walking distance. 

The Port Hotel is in-between a bed and breakfast and an actual hotel.  You're not forced to mingle with other guests like you are at a typical bed and breakfast.  My husband and I appreciate that as we are not fond of small talk and prefer our privacy.  But the rooms and feel of the hotel had all the amenities of a bed and breakfast place.  It's not a hotel, because there is no front desk clerk.  Your room is open when you arrive and the key is waiting in the room for you.  If you have any issues, you have a phone number you can call, and we had an issue...we were given the wrong key!  So I called the phone number and they came right over with the correct key.

Other than the key incident, the rest of the weekend was wonderful.  We loved our romantic, vintage room and took advantage of the fireplace even though it was late summer still. 😍

The first thing we did after checking in, was walk a few feet to the main business street to enjoy a fish fry.  I googled "Best Fish Fry in Port Washington" and The Steerage kept coming up, so we went there.  It was quite pricey compared to what we normally would pay for dinner-for-two but it was delicious and I couldn't even eat my entire portion, so we split it for lunch the next day with some smoked salmon I purchased at a local deli.

The Steerage is quite the experience.  It is located in the basement of this chiropractor office, so it is not handicap accessible.  It was really cool going down this long, dark, narrow staircase and seeing these nautical decorations and photos of the history of this old shipping town.

We always eat early when traveling, so it wasn't that crowded, although there were  people around the bar and the booths were all full.  They sat us right next to a party of four, which was kinda awkward, as we didn't have much privacy, but I didn't want to ask for a different table.

You can see how close we were to the other party in the photo below.  It was hard to even get a photo of my hubby without getting the person in the photo right next to him.  

Hubby ordered a clam chowder soup in addition to his fish fry but he didn't think it was that great so I don't recommend their soup.

The fish fry on the other hand was the best!  I highly agree with the google reviews.   You got two large portions of Panko-encrusted cod (now you understand why I only had room for one!) and a generous amount of steak fries.

It's always hard taking photos of restaurants because I want to respect people's privacy.  I did get a photo of the bar because it's only staff mostly visible in this photo, but the booths, which are on the opposite side of the bar, were loaded with people so I didn't want to take a photo.  There were cool vintage booths though, made with solid wood and had tall backs.  They have a great video on their website HERE where you can see the entire restaurant beginning with its location, down the dark stairway and into their establishment.

Well I hope you enjoyed my little hike in Lion's Den Gorge and hearing about The Port Hotel and The Steerage restaurant.  Next week I'll be back with tales of the rest of our visit to this charming little Old Shipping Town of Port Washington.

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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