Wilmington: so close, yet so far away. If you typically treat Delaware’s largest city as the driving equivalent of flyover country, it’s time to rethink that. Wilmington is more than banks and Bidens, with beautiful greenspaces, three waterfronts, and a wealth of historic buildings now reborn as restaurants, theaters and hotels. This renaissance has been building over the last decade, and there’s now more than enough to fill a spring weekend getaway that feels like a home-away-from-home. If you time the I-95 South traffic right, you can get there in 40 minutes. Start the car, or hell, call an Uber.

You’ve met smoked Old Fashioneds and smoked Manhattans, cloaked in clouds of fragrant vapor at speakeasies and cocktail bars. Bean Head Coffee Bar, located right off Wilmington’s 11th Street exit of 95, brings that theatricality to the daytime with a smoked hazelnut latte. Stop at this cool redbrick cafe on your way into town for their signature drink—they have all the usual hot and iced espresso bevs, too—and a cinnamon roll or hunk of coconut cake.

📍 714 W. 11th St., Wilmington, Del. 19801

Fans Mulherin’s in Fishtown, take note: The Quoin is from the same team at Method Co. Located in an 1885 Frank Furness-designed bank, this 24-room boutique hotel blends preserved historic bones with midcentury seating and patterned wallpaper. Book one of the upper-level rooms for vaulted ceilings and original arched windows.

📍 519 N. Market St., Wilmington, Del. 19801

In 1638, the Swedish ship Kalmar Nykel landed in what would become Wilmington, marking the first European settlement in the Delaware Valley. The original Nykel ship hasn’t existed for centuries, but a nonprofit commissioned and launched a faithful recreation of this splendid tall ship, which is docked at the Copeland Maritime Center on the Christiana River when she’s not out sailing. That’s right — this three-masted vessel is no sedentary museum. She’s seaworthy, offering 90-minute river cruises on the second, third, and fourth Saturdays in May and select dates in June and July.

📍 1124 E. 7th St., Wilmington, Del. 19801

The du Pont family legacy runs deep in Delaware, but one lesser-known point of legacy is the Nemours children’s hospital founded by Alfred I. du Pont’s estate. The medical network is named for his 200-acre property and 77-room mansion, the Nemours Estate, 15 minutes from downtown. Sign up for a guided tour (or maybe a forest bath with a nature therapist), or explore the estate’s Versailles-inspired gardens and gilded chateau independently. Just don’t miss the Chauffer’s Garage, whose vintage auto collection includes two Rolls-Royces.

📍 1600 Rockland Rd., Wilmington, Del. 19803

Underground in the Quoin building’s old vault, Simmer Down beckons with tufted camel banquettes, hand-painted murals and amber light radiating from fringed lamps. The lounge spreads out beneath barreled brick ceilings, setting a stage for brown butter-washed bourbon Old Fashioneds, fluffy magenta Clover Clubs and the Velvet Goose, a blend of mezcal, velvet falernum, creme de violette and dry vermouth anointed with black-lemon bitters.

📍 519 N. Market St., Lower Level, Wilmington, Del. 19801

A circa-1800s hotel and later, movie theater, the Queen rotted in disrepair on Market Street for more than 50 years. Restored to her former glory and reopened in 2011, it’s now a thriving music and events venue with stages for intimate and huge shows alike (the latter in the opulent 700-seat main hall). The programming runs the gamut: comedy shows, indie artists, drag brunches, tribute bands, open-mic nights, even a K-pop Demon Hunters kid rave.

📍 500 N. Market St., Wilmington, Del. 19801

The restaurant that triggered Wilmington’s culinary renaissance in 2018, Bardea Food & Drink, remains a magnet even as partners Scott Stein and chef Antimo DiMeo (a James Beard semifinalist) have opened several other concepts in the city. The menu is foundationally of DiMeo’s Italian heritage, but more meaningfully, represents his interest in global flavors. Under exposed timber beams, spaghetti twirls through inky scallop XO sauce, for example, and branzino rendezvouses with hoshigaki persimmon.

📍 620 N. Market St., Wilmington, Del. 19801