Editor’s note: I’ve long said that Chicago is one of my favorite American cities, and written all about different aspects of the place. Click here to read my Ultimate Guide to Chicago. It’s always nice when others have similarly wonderful experiences, and this article from Jackie illustrates some great parts of Chicago that I haven’t written about. For more of her travels, click here to visit her index page.

My previous posts have all been driving trips, but my husband has wanted to see Chicago again, where he lived for less than a year many decades ago. So we hassled with airports and airplanes (both ways the plane left late but arrived essentially on time) and taxis and Lyfts. But it was definitely worth it!

Prior to flying, I got advice from Jonathan and other relatives and friends and looked up some walking tours on https://www.evisitorguide.com/chicago/metrowalkz/index.php. We roughed out a few places we wanted to see and off we went. Instead of describing our trip day-by-day (we had three full days and two partial days), I want to give some overriding impressions in a few areas – outdoors/parks/open spaces, street art, and interiors of some buildings (including a museum).

Outdoors/Parks/Open Spaces

Downtown Chicago has a couple of large parks: Grant Park and Millennial Park (some sources say Millennial Park is part of Grant Park). Grant Park was being set up for the upcoming marathon, so parts were not accessible. The Buckingham Fountain, which I had seen pictures of, was much, much larger than I had anticipated and the volume of water was amazing. The water capacity is 1.5 MILLION gallons and at times it circulates up to 14,000 gallons of water per minute!

Also in Grant Park is a statue of Abraham Lincoln, the “Art on the Farm” community demonstration garden (with vegetables such as kale) and, of course, roses. The “Art on the Farm” is a partnership between Urban Growers Collective and the Chicago Park District and aims to teach people not only about growing food (vegetables, herbs), but also to teach them that such a garden can be beautiful as well.

One of the highlights of Millennial Park is, of course, the Bean. But the plaza around the Bean is being redone as of this writing, so we only got to see it behind fencing. However, the day we were walking around Millennial Park was unseasonably warm for early October. The Crown fountain was spitting out water and kids of all ages were enjoying playing in the water! Also in Millennial Park is the Frank Gehry-designed concert venue (Jay Pritzker Pavilion). The curvy and long (935 feet) BP Bridge, which he also designed, connects Millennial Park and the Maggie Daley Park and crosses busy Columbus Drive. It is named for the energy firm, BP, which contributed money for the bridge. Its design also contributes to damping noise from the busy street to the concert venue.

Aside from these major parks, there are lots of small pocket parks and flowers along many streets, which made walking around so enjoyable. There is also a nice area called Lincoln Square some distance from downtown with little shops and restaurants (we had a delicious piece of pie) and a fountain. We also walked to Oak Street Beach and enjoyed a few minutes watching beach volleyball and looking at the skyline.

Street Art

There are a number of sculptures in various plazas. There is a 50-foot Picasso-designed statue in the Richard J. Daley Center Plaza. It supposedly represents the head of his Afghan Hound. In the plaza of the Federal Center is a bright red “Flamingo” sculpture by Alexander Calder. Next to the Chicago Board of Trade are two statues representing agriculture and commerce or industry. And, this is only scratching the surface!

In the Chase Plaza is the incredible wall mosaic by Marc Chagall called the Four Seasons. It has mosaics on all 4 sides and is gorgeous.

Building Interiors

I am only going to touch on just a couple of building interiors, but can’t resist mentioning the Rookery, which Jonathan highlighted in his article. It is stunning! The Chicago Cultural Center, which was the original central library, has two gorgeous ceilings – one Tiffany stained-glass dome and another glass dome. It also has other beautiful ceilings and quotes from famous authors.

The old Marshall Field and Company store (now Macy’s) also has a gorgeous Tiffany ceiling and ornate outdoor clocks.

We were fortunate to stay near the Driehaus Museum, which is in the restored Samuel Mayo Nickerson Mansion, which was completed in 1883. The mansion had been rescued in 1919 by a group of Chicago residents and then used for 40 years by the American College of Surgeons. Mr. Driehaus, who had collected furnishings and art work from the late 18th century and early 19th century, bought the mansion in 2003 to display some of his collection. He had the mansion restored (this was a major undertaking; see https://driehausmuseum.org/about/restoration) and the museum opened to the public in 2008. The ceilings, floors, and walls are gorgeous and the furniture and many Tiffany lamps are beautiful.

Other miscellaneous items

There are so many pictures of the Chicago skyline on every Chicago site. It feels like a forest of skyscrapers! Although I took many pictures, I will only share my personal favorite – the St. Regis – the three tall, wavy-looking interconnected buildings in this picture.

We used the subway and L to get to the outskirts where my husband had lived many years ago and get back to the Loop area and then back to our hotel on the Magnificent Mile. A three-day pass was $15 + $5 to activate (which supposedly remained on the card when the three days were up). It was very easy to use and economical. We used our cell phones for most of the navigation, but sometimes it was off a bit, possibly due to not getting good signal with all the tall buildings.

We ate all four dinners outside at restaurants near our hotel (to be truthful, we went to one restaurant three times because we enjoyed it so much). The first two days were very warm and the next three were a bit rainy and much cooler. But people were still eating outside on covered patios with heat lamps.

As much as I don’t usually like large cities, our trip was wonderful. The variety of buildings coupled with wide sidewalks and lots of flowers and parks and fountains made walking very enjoyable. We walked around 13 miles over the three full days. We were also able to have lunch and go on the architectural boat tour with some cousins, which added extra enjoyment to the trip. As the title states, Chicago is an amazing city!

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