Vaughan to Detroit: the Motor City weekend by chauffeured car

Detroit, the western door

Detroit is the American city Vaughan reaches by the 401 — London, Chatham, Windsor — and a bridge that lands the Sprinter in the downtown's shadow rather than in a suburb; it is the trip for a family that has done Buffalo and wants a real city without New York State's distance. It has, in Dearborn, one of the country's great museums — the Henry Ford, where the bus Rosa Parks refused to move on, the limousine Kennedy was riding in, the Wright brothers' bicycle shop and Edison's laboratory (the last two moved bodily to Greenfield Village) sit under one roof; it has the Detroit Institute of Arts with Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry murals filling a courtyard; the Motown Museum in the Hitsville U.S.A. house where the Supremes recorded in Studio A; and a downtown where Ford Field, Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena hold the Lions, the Tigers, the Red Wings and the Pistons within a walk of each other and of the hotels. The Visit Detroit site has the city; the border guide has the Ambassador Bridge and the tunnel, and the Windsor post has the Canadian side.

The road, and the two crossings

From Woodbridge the 407 and the 401 west — Milton, Cambridge, London at the two-hour mark, Chatham's flat fields, Windsor at 3:45 — then the Ambassador Bridge from Huron Church Road, the busiest commercial crossing on the continent with a passenger lane the chauffeur has queued in, or the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel from downtown Windsor to downtown Detroit, shorter for a downtown hotel and often quicker for cars; the chauffeur checks both waits and picks. Just under five hours by the estimate and five and a quarter with the booth; the Gordie Howe International Bridge, the new crossing downriver, joins the choice as it comes into service. Detroit is on Eastern time, so the family loses nothing on the clock.

The Henry Ford and Greenfield Village

Dearborn, twenty minutes west of downtown, holds the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation — the Rosa Parks bus that visitors may board, the Kennedy presidential limousine, the chair Lincoln was shot in, the Dymaxion house, the locomotives, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, a hall of presidential cars and a hall of American furniture, the Ford Rouge Factory Tour's bus to the F-150 assembly line — and, outside its walls, Greenfield Village's eighty acres of buildings Ford collected: Edison's Menlo Park laboratory, the Wright brothers' Dayton bicycle shop and home, a working farm, Model T rides on the village's streets and a steam train around it. It is two days for a family that does both properly and one long day for a family that does the museum and the village's Model T; the museum's site has the tickets, and the Sprinter is in the lot between the two.

The DIA, Rivera and Midtown

The Detroit Institute of Arts on Woodward Avenue is a museum of the first rank — Van Gogh's self-portrait, the Bruegel, the American galleries — and its centre is Rivera Court, where Diego Rivera's twenty-seven frescoes of 1932–33 cover four walls with the Ford Rouge plant's workers and machines, the most important work of Mexican muralism outside Mexico and the room a family sits in for twenty minutes; the DIA's site has the hours and the free admission for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb residents, which Vaughan is not. Midtown around it has the Detroit Historical Museum, the Michigan Science Center for the children, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and Wayne State's campus; the QLine streetcar runs Woodward from Midtown to downtown and the Sprinter is released for the day.

Motown

The Motown Museum at 2648 West Grand Boulevard is the house — Hitsville U.S.A. — where Berry Gordy started the label in 1959, with Studio A as it was when the Supremes, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder recorded in it, the control room, Gordy's apartment upstairs and the guided tour that ends with the group singing in the studio; the tours are timed and sell out, booked on the museum's site weeks ahead, and the expansion around the house is under way. It is the hour a Vaughan family with music in it books first.

The teams, and the downtown

Ford Field (the Lions, Sundays in the autumn), Comerica Park (the Tigers, April to September, with the carousel and the Ferris wheel inside the park for the children) and Little Caesars Arena (the Red Wings and the Pistons, October to April) sit within four blocks along Woodward at the downtown's top, with the hotels of the Foxtown and Greektown blocks around them; a Vaughan group of eight books a Red Wings–Leafs game as the classic weekend, and a family a Tigers–Blue Jays summer series. The riverfront's RiverWalk from the Renaissance Center to Belle Isle, Campus Martius's square, the Guardian Building's Art Deco lobby and the People Mover's loop above the streets are the downtown's walk; the teams' sites have the tickets.

Eastern Market, Greektown and the food

Eastern Market on Saturday mornings is the country's largest historic public market — six sheds of farmers, butchers and bakers, the murals on the surrounding buildings, the Detroit-style square pizza at Supino's, the coney dogs at the two Coney Islands downtown (Lafayette and American, side by side, the city's argument) — and the family's Saturday start; Greektown's Monroe Street is the evening's tables and the casino's floor for the adults; Mexicantown's Bagley Street is the Sunday lunch; Buddy's is the original square pizza. The Sprinter's cooler carries the market's cheese home within the CBSA's rules.

The weekend, in shape

Friday at 11 from Woodbridge, London at 1, the Ambassador Bridge at 3:50, the Greektown or Foxtown hotel by 4:30, the RiverWalk, Greektown's dinner; Saturday Eastern Market at 8:30, the Henry Ford from ten to four with the Model T and the Rouge tour, the Red Wings at seven; Sunday the Motown tour at ten, the DIA's Rivera Court at 11:30, Mexicantown's lunch, the Sprinter at two, the tunnel at 2:30 with the 48-hour exemption, the 401 with the family asleep from Chatham, Woodbridge by 7:30. Two nights, the Sprinter as a return with a Saturday on daily hire, one number in the booking engine, and the travel desk holding the hotel.

What the chauffeur replaces

Four hours of the 401 each way, which every Vaughan family knows and none enjoys; the Ambassador Bridge's queue as the driver; Dearborn's twenty minutes each way; the downtown garages on a game night; and the Sunday's 401 home. For a couple the trip is a car's; for a family of five or a group of eight for a Red Wings game it is the Sprinter's one fare, and the site is plain that Detroit is a drive and not a flight for everyone.

Seasons

Hockey season for the Red Wings and the Leafs' visits; summer for the Tigers, the riverfront and Greenfield Village's Model Ts; the autumn for the Lions and the Thanksgiving Day game — the American holiday, a Vaughan work week — and America's Thanksgiving Parade down Woodward; the North American International Auto Show's dates for the car families; December for the Campus Martius rink and the Henry Ford's Holiday Nights in Greenfield Village.

Pairing it

Detroit pairs with Ann Arbor forty minutes west for a Michigan football Saturday or the university visit, with Chicago as the drive's first night on the way west, with Windsor across the river for the Canadian side's casino and Caesars, and with Cedar Point two hours south for a family that loops home by Cleveland.

The Henry Ford's day, in order, for a family of five

From the downtown hotel at 9:15 in the Sprinter: Dearborn's lot at 9:40 and the museum's doors at 9:30 — the Rosa Parks bus first, the family seated in it while the story is told; the presidential limousines and the Kennedy car; Driving America's hall of cars for the father; the Dymaxion house; the Wienermobile for the seven-year-old; the Rouge Factory Tour's bus at 11:30 for the F-150 line, ninety minutes; lunch at the museum's Lamy's Diner in the 1946 diner car; Greenfield Village at 2 — the Model T ride around the streets, Edison's laboratory with the interpreter, the Wright brothers' bicycle shop, the steam train's loop, the farm — until the six o'clock close; the Sprinter to Greektown's dinner. Eight hours, two tickets, and a family that saw the twentieth century in a day; the museum's site sells the combination.

Belle Isle and the riverfront

Belle Isle is Detroit's island park in the river — the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory's glass dome, the Belle Isle Aquarium of 1904 with its green-tiled hall, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum's freighter pilothouse, the beach and the giant slide, the Grand Prix's course in the spring — reached by the MacArthur Bridge with a Michigan state park pass the chauffeur buys at the gate; a family's Sunday morning in the Sprinter before the Motown tour, and the Belle Isle Conservancy's site has the hours. The RiverWalk from the Renaissance Center east to the island's bridge is the three-mile walk with Windsor across the water.

Costs, plainly

The Detroit weekend is a return with a Saturday on daily hire in the booking engine; the hotel, the museums' tickets and the game are the family's own, and the 48-hour exemption covers the market's cheese and the Motown shop. Against the fare are four hours of the 401 each way as a driver, the Ambassador Bridge's queue, Dearborn's drives, the downtown garages on a game night and the Sunday's 401 home; a couple does this in a car, and a family of five or a group of eight for a Red Wings–Leafs game books the Sprinter for one fare and the sleep from Chatham.

Booking it

Book a return from your Vaughan address with a Saturday on daily hire, or a daily hire for the weekend; tell us the Henry Ford's day, the game, the Motown tour's time, the hotel, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the crossing and the plan the evening before.

Book the Detroit weekend