I visited Chicago a couple of weeks ago. There is a quick nonstop flight from Tampa and we arrived around noon. My husband used points from his credit card so we could stay at the Hyatt Regency, which is a perfect location. We could walk to a lot of different places easily, but it was not overly crowded (except when a conference started at our hotel on Thursday afternoon). We wanted to visit the Art Institute of Chicago when we arrived, but it is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. Instead we decided to take a walk down N. Michigan Avenue and check out the park and visit the Photography museum. Sadly the museum was closed because they were setting up a new exhibit. Instead we wandered through the Chicago Public Library. I loved it. There are nine floors! We went to the top to see the Winter Garden. It was a lovely space that looked like a rooftop conservatory. There were several tables with chairs with trees and lots of space.

We started to walk over to Buckingham Fountain, but we could see that it was not on and therefore not interesting. We decided to check out the bean, which is actually called Cloud Gate, in Millennium Park. I am usually not impressed with iconic landmarks, but I really liked the bean. It was neat.

We took the L train into the city from the airport and when we were walking around, I realized that it reminded me of a lot of movies that I have seen. It was like being on set.

When we were walking through the parks. I took a picture of the Abraham Lincoln statue and the cool concert venue near the bean.

It was unseasonably warm when we were there. We decided to head to the river, across the street from our hotel to take an architectural tour by boat. I’m pretty sure we took Chicago’s First Lady boat tour. It’s the only one that is 90 minutes. You need to go down the stairs at the corner of Michigan and E. Wacker Drive. It was about $55 per person. They are more expensive at night. We got the last tour at 4pm. We decided to sit on the top deck so we could see everything well. The woman conducting the tour was an older lady, who did an amazing job. She didn’t always have her dates right, but the information that she gave us on both the history of Chicago and the architectural designs including the architects was bountiful. It was interesting as well. These are some of my favorite buildings from the river:

I love the four gazebos on each corner of the building.

This is an apartment building including parking. You must back your car in (luckily I think a valet does it for you). Each apartment is like a slice of pie. It must be interesting to fit in conventional furniture.

After our boat tour, we decided that we needed to try out Chicago’s deep dish pizza. We went to Giordano’s. They warn you that the pizza would take 40 minutes to prepare. My husband ordered plain cheese and I had spinach and mushrooms. It’s a little strange to eat pizza in which the dough is like a pie crust. I didn’t mind it, but there was a flavor to the sauce like it had sausage in it. It was probably the spices that they used, but it wasn’t my favorite. I did try it!