We love Casper bluff. Beautifully situated on the Illinois side of the mighty Mississippi. You…read moreare off the beaten path, enjoying being surrounded by nature. Views of the bluffs and river are fabulous with local history too. Looking forward to seeing this places improvements as time goes by.

If you are looking for an easy, grassy trail with a lot of greenery and views of the water from a…read moredistance, this is a good hike. Pet friendly too and "Mutt Mitts" at the trail head if you need them. I only wished we could have found the trail that was closer to the water but the mid-day hike made it a very warm trip and a little buggy too. The open fields with wild flowers were so pretty and the grassy trail is well kept. We also really appreciated the benches, picnic tables and covered Pavillion along the way so you could stop in the shade and drink some water. Pretty views of the Mighty Mississippi, even though many of the views are a little obstructed. I'll bet it's pretty here in the Fall. The parking lot is a trip to get to on the narrow dirt/gravel driveway but it is not too far back from the road. A lot of interesting scenery on the way to this trail on Blackjack road.

This is a park directly across the river from central Galena. You can get there via bridge over the…read moreriver - or there's parking on the east side of the river. There's a hill from the main entrance on the east side of the river to get to the top - with great views of central Galena. This is such a nice park. There are paved walkways that take you through the park There are a number of benches with various views. There's a gazebo, a statue of Grant, historic cannons/howitzers, a water fountain, a playground for small kids, and a basketball court. Can be a good place to just relax or to stroll. To stroll the whole thing - while reading the signs - took 45 minutes.

This is a good-sized park that wears many hats. It has a gazebo, where I'm sure many a ceremonial…read moreevent has been held. There are basketball courts, so people of all ages can play. There's a playlot for little ones and their carers. A fountain is part of the landscaping and probably provides some meditative white noise for people just here to relax and be. There are also several historical monuments; after all, named after favorite son Ulysses Grant, you'd expect as much. I was a bit surprised that there are two cannons here... not what I was expecting! Probably not loaded, though. There is access to Main Street on the east side of the river by using the pedestrian bridge. The lettering on the side of the park with its name was destroyed a few years back, and a Boy Scout troop repaired it. That's really cool that the local troop worked with the community in this way.

The view is so beautiful, it's so well maintained there's a lot of benches to rest and enjoy the…read morescenery! I passed some time here before checking in my hotel and was lucky enough to experience the train passing through

Wanted to experience the Mississippi River while in town and made our way to the Riverwalk. It was…read morea weekday and it was relatively quiet. The weather was amazing so we enjoyed a nice stroll viewing all of the interesting art along the way and stopping to watch the various birds who were enjoying the river as well. A beautiful and well maintained place.

I've been to the park area a few times for family gatherings and the shelters are always very nice…read more This year my mom decided that while the whole family was home for Christmas we would go snowshoeing on the trails out at Swiss Valley Nature Center. Since we had a heat wave and the temperature broke 40 degrees it was a beautiful day to be outside but not really the best snow to snowshoe in. But in the dead of winter, you have to take warm days when you get them. The Nature Center has snowshoes to rent for free. They have two different sizes for adults and I'm guessing they weren't super high quality snowshoes but they worked fine for us. We went on a Saturday and the selection was fairly picked over and we had to have ours back in 2 hours. You can call and reserve the shoes ahead of time and I would highly recommend doing that on the weekends. The trails were well marked and there were quite a few options for trails to take. There are also cross-country ski trails that are groomed if you are into that. The woman helping us at the nature center thought you could rent cross-country skies from Kunert Sports. We picked a hilly route and although I consider myself in-shape I was huffing and puffing going up the steepest climb. The sites were beautiful and very worth it though.

A great place to hike near Dubuque. As the name suggests, the nature preserve is located in a…read morevalley just west of town. There's a nature center at the trailhead, and a campground just down the road. The trails span a variety of habitats, and are long and hilly enough to get your heart rate pumping if you so desire. A nice alternative to the Mines of Spain.

The museum is awesome!! So much to see and learn. The wildlife is incredible to see. We saw a very…read moremajestic bald eagle up close. We experienced the steam engines running and visited with the curator for a bit to learn even more. The movies were very well done. The fact that your tickets are good for two days allows you to take your time. Worth every penny and your time!!! A must see!!

4th time here. That should speak for itself. We always enjoy coming here with new visitors when we…read morecome into town. This is a must see if you are coming to the Dubuque area. Because the weather was really nice, we ended up spending the entire day here checking out the entire museum this time. We also caught the 40 movie about turtles narrated by Russell Crowe, which was great. I think if you have Littles in your group, this is a definite go to in Dubuque.

Great museum. We'd…read morevisited here last, about 20 years ago. Memory fades and it was time to revisit on this trip. All exhibits are housed inside on 2.5 floors. There is also a gift shop and restrooms. I found no elevator. We paid (senior rate saves $1 each) and went into a seating room where there used to be a video projection (no longer working). The staff member there today, Les, led everyone into this room to be seated. Les spoke about the rich history of Galena and he was quite detailed. We found this worthwhile. After the speech, we looked around this room at mostly US Grant artifacts, then we headed to a very large back room that has many displays, dioramas etc. on Galena. Lead mining had a rich history here for a few decades, so there was a lot of mining history on display. When we were done downstairs, we walked upstairs where there is a smallish room on the 2nd floor and a much larger room on what I'd call floor 2.5. Floor 2.5 had mostly wartime history while floor 2 had a variety of history on display. Note that the stairs are fairly steep. The first set also has a 90 degree turn near the top. There is a low, wooden banister-style handrail on one side. To access floor 2.5, there are another 6 or 8 steps to get up to it and there's a metal handrail for them. All in all - it's a pretty well done history museum for a small community and it was worth the time. I'd recommend this useful to anyone who wonders, "why does this town exist, how was it formed and what does its evolution look like". We enjoy museums like this.

What a great little museum! We didn't know what to expect, but I can honestly say we were blown…read moreaway! The ladies that welcomed us were so friendly and knowledgeable about the museum! There was so much packed in! It wasn't only about Grant but about the whole settling of Galena and all the way back to the ice age! I have to say this is a gem of a place and definitely a must see! It's clean and reasonably priced! We will definitely come back when we come to visit again.

Steve was an amazing guide. Knowledgable, helpful, a great morning of fishing with a handful of…read morekeepers. Was a great outing and definitely will recommend to anyone and will be going again soon. Thanks Steve.

Full disclosure: this is my brother-in-law's business, but when you first talk with Steve you will…read moreimmediately know he treats all his clients like family. We fished on the Mississippi River primarily for walleye because they are fun to catch and excellent to eat. Steve is a professional walleye tournament competitor and has a lifetime of fishing knowledge and experience he shares with his clients to make their fishing trip successful. His boat is a 19-foot Ranger that has every option available to successfully fish any technique required by the conditions. Steve knows where the fish are and what to use. And if the fish aren't biting he always has another method or another spot to try. Steve's entire focus is his clients catching fish and having a fun fishing experience. He makes sure each client's rod is fully rigged and continuously positions the boat to get bait in the right spot. On this day we caught several walleye, some big ones we couldn't keep because they were in the slot (20-27 inches), and enough keepers (15-20 inches) for an excellent fish dinner. Steve filets the fish in seconds once back on the dock and beautiful slabs of tasty meat are ready for cooking. Check out his website and give Steve a call for fishing experience you will want to do over and over.

We brought a group of 24 for a 3 day/2 night visit. Our group rate was great considering its peak…read moreseason for Galena (thanks to Tara). The front desk and restaurant staff (especially Joe the restaurant manager, Pete the bellman and Delaney) made our first night flawless with a pizza party by the fire-pit. The staff was very accommodating to anything we needed. Thank you to all and we'll be back!

It was very very dirty and we saw a five centipede/millipedes. We try to give house cleaning a…read morechance, but all they did was put the shower mat in the shower. They didn't clean the ground at all. I don't know if this is normal what they usually do but they only let those two Thai pods to do laundry and no fabric softener. And from the previous guest, probably from like 20 years ago, left Fitness bars in a crusty Ziploc bag and house cleaning didn't pick it up. But they had a nice pool and work out room