Advertisement
Published: December 24th 2010
Edit Blog Post
I slept in. At the first given opportunity I slept to recover from the previous 5 days travelling. We didnt leave the hotel until around 1pm to visit Chicago. We had to drive 30 miles to get into Chicago from the hotel.
Driving through Chicago was really nice, the skyscrapers had really nice architecture and was really metropolitan. One thing I did find, is the designs weren't as innovative or new as Seattle - but apparently the first skyscraper was designed in Chicago.
We parked the car under the city in underground parking.
The first place we went was Millennium Park (which was actually first opened in 2004). We saw the giant bean and walked around the park (which isn't so big).
The bean was really impressive and was surrounded by tourists with their cameras. We took many photographs ourselves.
The park was completely white and snow covered, and cold.
Next we began walking along the harbour and pier. It was so cold (-7C) that the lake had frozen over in the harbour. It took 30 minutes to get to the pier.
The pier was a tourist hub. There were few attractions and the place was a lot of
shops, a ferris wheel and was a place to try to get you to spend your money.
We didn't fall into that trap and just took a few outdoor pictures of the city before heading back in to Chicago.
We then decided to go to the Chicago Art Institute which was entirely free after 5pm.
There were pictures by Vincent Van Gogh, Monet and Pablo Picasso among others.
I have to admit, the art museum was one of the nicest most modern layouts for any museum and was really nice. There were people who were genuinely interested in the art - including people who were crying over seeing paintings. But generally, the vibe was really new and modern, and you could see that there was a lot of money pumped into maintaining the place. The exhibits and paintings were real nice and there was a lot of variation and choice of things to see.
After the art museum, we wanted to visit the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower). It was only a short walk, and we passed the Trump Tower on the way - which looked very sleak and impressive.
The Willis Tower is in the financial
district, so I was very excited to be around all the major Chicago financial buildings, banks and the Chicago Stock Exchange. The Chicago banks are the nicest banks I have ever been in!
Unfortunately the Willis Tower was closed and we could only get into the main lobby, it wasn't possible to take the tour.
We decided it was time to eat, and unsurprisingly ended up in the only affordable eat-in place in the city.. McDonalds. It was the most expensive McDonalds that I have seen in the US so far at $8.50 for a Large Big Mac meal.
The day ended nicely, with a final walk around the city including passing by Roosevelt University and a drink in an Irish bar followed by the drive back to the hotel. Parking for the day came to a mean $30.
The whole day was amazing and there are lots of things I'm looking forward to doing over the next couple of days.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0213s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb