A Milwaukee Day Trip From Chicago Without a Car: Train, $5 Museum, Free Streetcar

Train 331 leaves Union Station at 8:25 and reaches Milwaukee at 9:54. The free M-Line streetcar covers the four minutes from the Intermodal to the Historic Third Ward stop, then it is a five-minute walk to 400 N Water St; the whole way on foot is about fifteen. The hall opens at ten and Anodyne Coffee has been pouring since seven, so the first hour is coffee and a lap of the counters. St. Paul Fish Company and Thai-namite open at eleven, which is when the eating should start. Half an hour is short for a sit-down plate, so eat quickly or pick up something from a counter that opens with the hall at ten. Leave by half past eleven for the twenty-minute walk up Broadway.

Saturday hours begin at noon, and the rooftop sculpture garden is shut for renovations through the winter: there is no access to it, so the twelve bronze workers are a view from below, lined along the roofline and clearest from the Broadway pavement across the street. Inside, three floors carry more than two thousand paintings, sculptures and works on paper about work, from harvest fields to steel mills and the people who ran them. Admission is $5, students and seniors $3, under 12 free, and the building takes cards only. Two hours is a condensed visit rather than the whole collection, and it is what gets you to the 3:00.

Count it up: $5 at the door, $3 for students and seniors, nothing for the Hop, and the Amtrak fare on top — coach seats move with demand, so book early. To get back, walk five minutes south on Broadway to the City Hall southbound stop, take the M-Line toward the Intermodal, and allow up to twenty minutes of waiting plus eight minutes aboard for four stops. Leave at two and you are on the platform for the 3:00, in Chicago at 4:29; the 5:36 Borealis and the 7:35 run later, seats permitting. Closed November 26, and Sundays run one to four.