Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Bayfield, Wisconsin

This is a continuation of a travel series of a camping trip I took with my family back in July.  To start at the beginning, go HERE.  The rest of the posts, in chronological order, are HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

In last week's travel post I mentioned that on the final day of our camping trip we had grown a little tired of hiking in the woods and looking at waterfalls.  We then decided to have a "City Day" on our last day of vacation.  We spent the morning in Ashland and taking the Ashland Mural Walk, then we drove thirty minutes to Bayfield, Wisconsin.

Bayfield,  Wisconsin is a cute little port town located on Lake Superior.  Most people go to Bayfield to catch the ferry to Madeline Island or to take one of the many wonderful Apostle Islands Boat Tours.  Since we only had a few hours, we were there just to enjoy their pretty little town, museums, and lake views.

Like most tourist towns, Bayfield is filled with cute little gift shops and restaurants in historic, old buildings.


This beautiful old building is the Bayfield Library.

What makes Bayfield so beautiful and also unique, is that they not only have all the cute houses and historic buildings characteristic of most small towns, but they also have beautiful views of Lake Superior wherever you look.


See the blue water in the picture above and below?


I always like to have a little pick-me-up in the afternoon so I was thrilled to discover this quaint coffee shop.  I love the old refrigerator in the corner.




I love all these fun store fronts.


Many of the restaurants take advantage of the scenic views by having roof top dining, or dining outside.


The town is built into a hill, so as you walk away from the water and up into the residences, you get more spectacular views.


This is the back of a ferry heading out of port and towards Madeline Island.


Here I am standing on one of the piers overlooking the Madeline Island Ferry as it boards cars.


There's another large, wide, cement pier where a lot of boats dock and pedestrians love to stroll on.




There are so many pretty sailboats.  This is a great place to just go and watch the boats come and go.


This fun bicyclist was riding on the pier.


Bayfield  City Hall.


My favorite thing about Bayfield, other than the gorgeous lake views and cute town buildings, was that they had two museums, both FREE to the public.  I really appreciate free or reduced cost museums.  This museum is located near the lake shore for it's the Maritime Museum.  It contains all the 150 years of Bayfield's maritime history.  It features commercial fishing and boat building exhibits as well as exhibits on lighthouses, sailor crafts, shipwrecks, and much more.


The other free museum in town is located right across the street from the library.  It's called The Heritage Center.  They were pressure washing the exterior of the building when we were there so they could repaint it.

This museum shared all the history and culture of the Bayfield area.  Our favorite part was looking at all the pictures of a great flood that almost destroyed the entire town.


When visiting old towns, we love to walk the neighborhood streets and see all the old churches and magnificent old homes.

The church below is Christ Episcopal Church.  It was built in 1870 and was designed in the Victorian Gothic and Carpenter Gothic architectural styles.


This building is The Apostle Islands National Lake Shore Headquarters.  It  just closed for the day when we arrived so I can't tell you much about it.  The building is magnificent though isn't it?


This gorgeous historic home is called Le Chateau.    It is a bed and breakfast now, but it was originally built for a lumber baron.


And finally, this was another church building I thought was absolutely stunning.   I just love the brick work.  Unfortunately,  I couldn't find more information on this church.


And that concludes this travel series for our trip to Bayfield was the very last day of our July vacation.  I did plan on doing a special "Gardens of Bayfield "post on Sunday, because there were so many beautiful gardens in this town.  In fact, I've never seen a town filled with so many beautiful gardens!  I think everyone who lives here must be a master gardener!  I also wanted to talk about another little town called Hayward that we briefly stopped at on our journey home...so maybe I'm not quite done with this little travel series yet! :)

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE and Travel Tuesday!


10 comments:

  1. Such beautiful lake views, but I'm really a sucker for that cute and quirky coffee shop! I love to find little, local gems like that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's so funny, because I almost didn't post those photos. Whenever we travel, we take hundreds of photos and it's always so difficult to narrow it down to just a few photos per post.

      Delete
  2. Love the architecture! And that adorable little coffee shop! Looks like you had such a great vacay!

    http://www.mylittlenest.org

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ruth...I'm a sucker for great architecture and coffee shops!

      Delete
  3. I too need a little pick me up sometimes in the afternoon. What a cute coffee shop. I just love visiting little towns like this and the view of the water is just beautiful!

    Carrie
    curlycraftymom.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Carrie! Good to know I'm not the only one who needs that afternoon lift. I'm so surprised how many people commented about the coffee shop. I'm glad I showed the pictures!

      Delete
  4. Really beautiful! Love the lake views and what fun little coffee shop! That cyclist must be really skilled! Kids and I were trying to figure out how he even got on the bike :-)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment. I love feedback from my readers. If you have a blog, I always return the love by visiting within a week whoever leaves a comment.