Top Rated Attractions in Detroit

One of the many spirited attractions in downtown Detroit, Comerica Park is an extensive verdant field which has been a host to some iconic sporting events and concerts in the past. Named after the bank whose funds made its creation possible, Comerica Park overlooks some of the soaring high-rises residing in the city's downtown. Home ground of the Detroit Tigers, this sprawling ballpark is anything but a run-of-the-mill, neighborhood stadium. Strewn across its course are glorious tiger statues, a baseball-themed Ferris wheel, and the enormous Chevrolet Fountain. Hence, Comerica Park harbors a lively, further amplified by enthusiastic cheers and celebrations when the Tigers hit a home run. The ballpark is also home to the Big Cat Court, which offers a wealth of delectable foods like pretzels, deli sandwiches, French fries, Chicago-style hot dogs and more.

The National Football League's Detroit Lions played outside the city at the Pontiac Silverdome since abandoning Detroit's Tiger Stadium at the end of the 1974 season. In 2002, The Lions moved back to the city and into their new digs at Ford Field, a massive 65,000-seat stadium of steel and glass in the city's downtown entertainment district. Besides sporting events, the facility holds concerts, banquets, corporate events and other special events as well.

Restored to its former splendor, the Detroit Opera House is a downtown landmark that finds itself right in the middle of the action, bordered by the Theatre District, Comerica Park and Greektown. The superb acoustics in the hall provide a prime venue for the Michigan Opera Theatre and for a variety of other performing arts productions, including plays, concerts and dance performances. In days gone by, it was a theater, concert and movie house, the fifth-largest in the world when it opened in 1922. The frescoes, marble stairways, draperies and chandeliers from its glory days have been restored. The Opera House reopened in 1996 with a performance by Luciano Pavarotti.

The preservation of this theater is one of Detroit's proudest achievements. The 5048-seat palace of the arts, arguably the most opulent in the nation when it opened in 1928, was designated a national landmark in 1989 after a USD11,000,000 refurbishment by new owner Mike Ilitch. The oldest, continually operating theater in the United States features a 10-storey marquee, a six-storey lobby with a two-ton chandelier and 300,000 glass jewels in its interior. The exotic presentation of lions, gold fixtures and jaw-dropping grandeur harkens back to the flamboyant era of movie houses. The Fox is now busy with concerts, family-oriented shows and a wide variety of other offerings. It's the anchor of the Theatre District and perhaps Detroit's greatest civic treasure.

Located inside the golden-domed Fisher Building in Detroit's New Center, the Fisher Theatre has long been Detroit's venue for touring productions of Broadway plays and musicals. These and other national theatrical productions usually fill the seats at this meticulously renovated historic gem. The lobby of the Fisher Building is spectacularly ornate and the theater itself is grand. Over the years, it has been Detroit's stable window on the world of theater and one of the most elegant destinations in the city. All the seats, even in the balcony, are good ones.

When it first opened in 1925, The Fillmore Detroit was called The State Theater. Like many downtown Detroit movie houses, it has gone through numerous incarnations, from legitimate theater to burlesque to art-house cinema. Adjacent to the Fox Theatre, it's now in the center of downtown's hot zone. As a popular venue, with a dozen bars sprinkled throughout its ornate interior, a high-tech video wall and a tri-level cabaret style set-up, it's perfect for parties. It's also used for concerts and movies. Patrons gawk at the white marble staircase, crystal chandelier and Corinthian columns in the lobby, and at statues of knights in armor guarding the stage.