Viroqua
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Viroqua

Viroqua

Small Driftless Region town amid coulees and bluffs, with farms, galleries, and a historic Main Street.

Viroqua is a small town of about 5,000 people in the heart of Wisconsin's Driftless Region — the southwest corner of the state that was never flattened by glaciers. The result is a landscape of winding coulees, sandstone bluffs, spring-fed streams, and valleys that look like nowhere else in the Midwest.

The town sits along US Route 14, about ninety miles west of Madison. It's an unlikely mix: old-school farming community and countercultural enclave, where conventional and organic farmers share the same county roads, and where you'll find art galleries, a farmers' market, live music venues, and good coffee within a few blocks of each other. The restored historic Main Street and the member-owned Viroqua Food Co-op are the visible centre of it. The surrounding Vernon County has one of the highest concentrations of organic farms in the country.

Viroqua is small enough to walk across in twenty minutes, but it punches above its weight culturally. It makes a good base for exploring the broader Driftless Area — the hiking, the trout streams, and the quiet back roads that loop through the hills.

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Bars and Cafes

For a small town, Viroqua punches well above its weight on coffee and live music. The cafes around the downtown stretch make for a pleasant afternoon's coffee crawl.

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Day Trips

Viroqua's real draw is the Driftless Region around it — a landscape of steep coulees, sandstone bluffs, spring-fed streams and Amish farms that survived the last ice age intact. The roads west toward the Mississippi (Wisconsin Highway 56) and south toward Soldiers Grove wind through some of the most beautiful country in the Midwest.

Wildcat Mountain State Park, half an hour east, has hiking trails along the Kickapoo River and the best lookouts in the area. Cave of the Mounds, La Crosse on the Mississippi, and the Amish country around Cashton are all within an hour's drive.

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Eating Out

For a town of 5,000, Viroqua eats remarkably well. The Driftless area's organic farms supply the kitchens directly, and the food scene is more about that farm-to-table seriousness than any kind of style. A short list of standouts is below.

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Getting There

Viroqua sits at the junction of US 14 and Wisconsin 27, about 90 miles west of Madison and 35 miles southeast of La Crosse. The drive from Madison takes about an hour and three quarters; La Crosse Regional Airport is the nearest commercial airport, with daily flights to Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit.

There is no scheduled bus or train service to Viroqua itself; you will need a car to reach the town and to get around once you arrive.

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Things to Do

Viroqua is a small place and most of its pleasures are out-of-doors and unhurried: walking the historic main street, the Saturday farmers' market, and getting out into the Driftless hills and coulees that surround the town. A handful of restored buildings on Main Street and the dramatic landscape just beyond it are the main draw.

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When to Go

The Driftless Region is at its best in summer (June to September) when the hills are green and the rivers run cold and clear for fishing and paddling, and again in October when the hardwoods turn. Winters are very cold and snowy — pleasant if you ski cross-country at the nearby trails, less so if you're just passing through.

Time a visit for the second Saturday in October for the annual Driftless Area Art Festival, or any Saturday morning in the warmer months for the farmers' market on Western Avenue.