Traveling to Chicago – It’s Magnificent!

We are leaving the “windy city” tomorrow morning after five fabulous days here. What a great place to visit. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency on East Wacker – our room on the 18th floor had a magnificant view of the Chicago River and the Chicago skyline! This hotel, along with lots of others, is in the heart of Chicago and staying hereputs just about everything within reach!

Bring your walking shoes and a sweater – the “windy” city can be absolutely chilly, even for someone suffering from her own personal summer fairly frequently! My DIVA bag came in handy for carrying my prizes as I shopped the Magnificent Mile – better known as shopping heaven! You name the store- it’s there on N Michigan Avenue – Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack, Bloomies, Macy’s, Nine West, Gap, Kate Spade, Barneys, Hermes, Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Benetton, Filene’s Basement, Lord & Taylor, Giorgio Armani….and the list goes on and on! The Magnificent Mile site reports 460shops and boutiques and over 200 restuarants!

One caveat – sales tax here is 10% on clothing, a little lower on food. But, then, the bargains may make it worth it!

We discovered early on that there is a free trolley – four of them in fact – and they will give you an absolutely lovely “tour” of the city! Each trolley covers an”end” and they almost all intersect at some point. We spent one afternoon just transferring from trolley to trolley, seeing most of the important sites. While we didn’t do so, you can get off and on the free trolley to visit the various sites – ieNavy Pier, Millenium Park (absolutely spectacular green space that spans at least 12 city blocks and loaded with statues, monuments, cafe’s and even a “water sprinkler” for hot humans!), Soldier Field, the planetarium and aquarium, Field Museum, Sear’s Tower and the Hancock Tower. You can also, of course, purchase trolley/double decker bus tours, as well as cruises along the river.But for us, the trolley was perfect for when we just couldn’t walk anymore!

We foundhotel dining room food good but very pricey.I highly recommend the Corner Bakery Cafe’s – we had breakfast there several mornings – they are inexpensive and good and are liberally sprinkled in this area of thecity.Restaurants are – like all big city eateries – a bit expensive,but we haddelicious dinnersat Shula’s and Catch 35. We had two meals at an Irish pub (a good friend once told me that whenever she travels, she always looks for an Irish pub because she knows the food will be good and hearty!) – the Emerald Loop – the absolute best corned beef sandwich I have ever had and an okay Sunday breakfast buffet (but at $9.95 a person you can’t really complain, and the eggs were real, not powdered!) We also had lunch at Ditka’s – spicy open-faced meatloaf on cornbread with gravy (more than enuf for 2) and some tasty Buffalo wings with Ditka’s own bleu cheese dipping sauce. The staff there was incredible – even obliging our request for a picture by placing us in the perfect spot and then offering a second photo op with the Ditka paper standup!

Finally, we were souvenier shopping and found pretty much the same old mugs, cups, t-shirts, until we stopped in at the Chicago Cultural Center which has a fabulous gift shop – did most of our shopping there, saved a few dollars (we checked the same items at souvenier stores and found the prices higher) and were happy to know that the money was used in part to benefit this beautiful non-profit! Not to mention that the items were unique and fun!

All in all, I would definitely return to Chicago anytime – it is a city in transition and each new tower is just a shade taller than the last. But, in with all the new buildings, hundreds of buildings from the 1800′s still stand proudly, making for an incredible skyline and a fabulous adventure!