Start from 25 curated places around Alton, IL, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Castelli's Restaurant at 255
A local institution since 1937, now in its fourth generation of family ownership. The famous TALK-N-CHIC fried chicken — a house-recipe secret — is what 70% of tables order, and for good reason. The dining room seats over 300 and gets properly packed on weekends. You're eating what Alton families have eaten for 89 years.
Gentelin's On Broadway
Alton's go-to for an actual sit-down dinner — fine dining by local standards, with pasta, steak, and seafood on a menu that's been refined over nearly two decades. The Clark Bridge view from the dining room is legitimately good, especially at dusk. Dinner-only, Tuesday through Saturday, so plan accordingly.
Trails & outdoors
Sam Vadalabene Bike Trail
A 20-mile paved trail running from Alton to Pere Marquette State Park along the base of the Mississippi bluffs, hugging the Great River Road the entire way. Cyclists pass through Elsah's 19th-century stone village and end in Grafton at the river confluence. The trail follows the old Alton-Grafton interurban railroad bed, so grades are gentle throughout.
Olin Nature Preserve (The Nature Institute)
A 294-acre preserve on karst limestone bluffs above the Mississippi in Godfrey, with a 2.8-mile loop that includes a waterfall, sinkholes, upland forest, and hilltop prairie with unobstructed river views. More than 300 native plant species and 150 bird species call it home. Trails close December through March, so it's a three-season destination.
Things to do
Alton Hauntings Walking Tours
Three-hour guided walking tours of Alton's documented paranormal history, run by paranormal author Troy Taylor. The route covers the old Alton Penitentiary site, First Unitarian Church, the Enos Sanitarium, and other documented locations — not manufactured haunted-house stuff but actual historical accounts of a town that had more than its share of tragedy, war, and disease. The Old Bakery also runs a Haunted Craft Beer Walk that pairs stops with beer pours.
Eagle Watching — Melvin Price Locks & Grafton
The Middle Mississippi Valley hosts the second-largest overwintering bald eagle population in the continental U.S., and Alton sits in the heart of it. From late December through mid-February, the stretch from the Melvin Price Locks and Dam to Grafton can put 25 to 150 eagles in view on a single drive. The eagles hunt the open water below the dam tailwaters, which stay ice-free.
Landmarks & sights
Piasa Bird Mural
A 22-by-48-foot creature painted on the limestone bluffs along Route 100 just north of downtown — antlered, scaled, part eagle, part nightmare. French explorer Marquette recorded the original Native American rock art in 1673; quarrying destroyed it in the 1840s, and the current version was repainted in 1999. Pull off the road heading toward Grafton and look up at the bluff face.
Lincoln-Douglas Debate Square
This is where it ended — the seventh and final debate between Lincoln and Douglas took place here on October 15, 1858, in front of roughly 5,000 people. Life-size bronze statues now stand at the corner of Broadway and Market, capturing both men mid-argument on the question that defined the era. The setting is understated but the weight of what happened here is real.