Three Days in the Windy City

Groove at a Blues or Jazz club. Okay, maybe we didn't really groove, but we did really enjoy listening to the live music. Our stop of choice was Blue Chicago on North Clark, but that's just one of a wide range of choices.

Experience the architecture. The Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) offers a river tour that is top-notch, both interesting and informative. And no need to be an architect to enjoy the tour; if nothing else, being on the river gives a unique perspective on the city.

Walk the Loop. This is the central section of the city, located inside the loop of the L train. We were pleasantly surprised at how small (and walkable) the area is. Go on an art "treasure hunt", finding all the great sculpture and other art scattered through the Loop.

Tour Wrigley Field. If the Cubs are out of town, or if you can't wrangle game tickets, don't let that keep you from visiting an American landmark. The field offers a tour that gives you access to some parts of the park you wouldn't see during a game, and gives a fun history lesson on the park.

Visit your favorite impressionist. Or modernist. Or whoever you like. Art is everywhere in Chicago, including inside some great museums. For us, the Chicago Art Institute was our best-ever art museum experience.

Take the train south to the Hyde Park area. This part of the city has a totally different feel; big trees, ivy covered buildings, plenty of bookstores, and college students out playing frisbee.

Quick Tips:

For the things we wanted to see, a hotel inside the Loop and at an L stop was the way to go, even though the restaurants tend to close after business hours. The near Northside looked like a good area, too, with plenty of people out to party on a Thursday night.

Book popular sights before you go. Buying tickets for the Sears tower from home won't skip all the lines, but it will probably cut your wait time in half. Definitely reserve the CAF river tour early - it can sell out quickly.

Best Way To Get Around:

We found the central portion of Chicago to be extremely walkable. For trips further afield, public transportation was a breeze. We took the L into the city from Midway and fell in love with it - we used it several times during the weekend. I don't see having a car as being an advantage for a visit to the typical tourist spots.

"The Second City" is a Chicago original, and has given a start to numerous comedic geniuses. Some names that stood out in the playbill's list of Alumni were Joan Rivers, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and John Candy. I believe most of the original cast of Saturday Night Live honed their craft on the improv stage here.

We arrived early - a good thing, since tickets are not for a particular seat. No, instead someone walks you onto the floor, and shoehorns you into a tiny seat at a tiny little table, right up next to your neighbor. Have you seen those guys that work as people pushers on the Japanese subways? They might learn something from Second City. Comparing notes afterwards, my husband and I agreed that no fire marshall had ever attended one of these shows.

But once the show started, I completely forgot about the elbow in my back and my nagging claustrophobia. The show playing that night was "Between Barak and a Hard Place", and we laughed so hard we cried. Some of the humor was political, some of it was topical, all of it was great. These guys (and gals) really know their stuff.

There are two shows on Saturdays, and we had tickets to the later one. If you're going, be sure to choose this show - take a nap during the day if you have to, but definitely make it to the later show. This one gives you an extra hour of hilarity after the main event. After the feature show is over, the cast comes back out and does an hour or so of improv sketches, with suggestions for topics shouted out from the audience.

I wouldn't suggest the Second City for those who don't enjoy adult humor or are easily offended by jabs at your favorite politician. Many of the jokes were somewhat graphic (especially the bonus improv). If you're going, keep an open mind.

Showtime is 8pm from Tuesday to Saturday, with a second show at 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Sundays only have one show at 7pm. You can get tickets online at The Second City's website. Tickets are more expensive Fridays and Saturdays.

Our vacations are rarely restful - they are more the "see-it-all-on-foot" kind of trips. So sometimes, I admit, we get a little cranky. We were tired when we got to the Sears Tower Skydeck entrance in the afternoon of a day with lots of walking. The line didn't look too bad - maybe 50 people, waiting for the elevator. No big deal.

So we got in line.

Then we realized that this was NOT the line for the top. No. This group of stroller-pushers and high school field-trippers was merely waiting for one harried and hassled young lady to allow us access to the down elevator - to take us deeper into the building, into longer lines for security checks and ticket purchases. It was at the moment of that realization that the crankiness kicked in. We finally resigned ourselves to the fact that it wasn't going to be a quick stop, promised we'd find some food right afterwards, and got on with the waiting. But still, I remember my visit to the Skydeck as a series of lines. Here's what you can expect:

Line #1 is the line for the elevator. This starts in the lobby on Jackson. It wasn't too bad for us, but I imagine this one might snake out onto the sidewalk on really busy days. According to their website, the best way to avoid long lines is to arrive after 5; the Skydeck opens at 10 am, and closes at 10pm April-October (8pm October-March).

Once downstairs, we stood in line #2 for security. As I remember, you could bring in small bags. It moved pretty quickly, but still provided us with plenty of time to review our guidebook for Sears Tower trivia.

After exiting security, most folks stand in the ticket line (line #3). DO NOT stand in this line! Instead, buy your tickets on the web ahead of time. This is a great time saver, especially because an eticket is good for one visit in a seven day window, which gives you a great amount of flexibility.

So, skipping the ticket line, scoot over to line #4, which wraps back and forth and finally dumps you in a movie theater. You'll see a movie about the construction and history of the Sears Tower. It lasts about 10 minutes, and is pretty interesting - I think it was a History channel production.

Once the movie's over, exit the theater for (you guessed it) line #5. This was the money line - it ends at the long awaited "up elevator", a ride which is extremely fast, and pretty cool. Views from the top are great, although crowded. Yes, you will probably have to stand in some short lines to get to the best viewing spots.

There's also a somewhat interesting display around the center of the viewing floor, providing historical information about Chicago. I had lots of time to look at this while I was waiting in line#6 - the line for the elevator out.

When my husband and I are planning a city visit, we almost always make sure to include a trip to an art museum. Normally these visits involve me dragging my husband from gallery to gallery as I try to enjoy pre-Rennaissance religious works (I still hate them). Truth be told, it's normally quite painful.

The Chicago Art Institute was a completely different experience. It ranks as my favorite art museum EVER.

I'm a fan of the impressionists, so I'm sure that's part of what I enjoyed - they have a wonderful collection. So many works that I've only seen in art books, right there in front of me! I only had a general idea of what was in their collection before we went, and it was so thrilling to walk into each gallery and get excited to see the "real, live" paintings I've seen reproductions of so many times. Mary Cassat, Monet, John Singer Sargeant....so many beautiful pictures to look at.

If you're taking along a less-than-excited someone on your visit, be sure to have them watch Ferris Bueller before you leave home. My husband is a big fan of the movie, and we both got a kick out of trying to recognize where the art museum scenes had been filmed.

We saved George Seurat's Sunday Afternoon for last and spent a moment enjoying the pointillism. Lovely and relaxing. Now if only I could learn to feel that way about pictures of saints...

In 1871, Chicago's Great Fire burned most of Chicago's existing buildings, and the rebuilding of the city resulted in some architectural masterpieces. We had heard about the art scattered between the buildings, too, and were anxious to find it. Here's the route we took for our pilgrimage.

We started at our hotel, the Chicago Renaissance, at State and Wacker. Heading south down State, we passed the Chicago Theatre sign - now a well-known symbol of the city, the 1921 theater narrowly escaped demolition in 1980. Across the street from the Chicago sign, note the local ABC station making the news behind a big glass wall.

Taking a right on Randolph headed us west, and passed us by the Corner Bakery for a quick morning coffee (and maybe a pastry - we needed our strength, after all!). Continuing a block further, we reached the James R. Thompson Center. This is a huge building, built in 1985, and different enough from the surrounding buildings to stand out. Here's where we encountered our first artistic outcropping - don't walk past without realizing this one's art! The Monument with Standing Beast, by Jean Debuffet, is a big white and black fiberglass sculpture. Call me unsophisticated, but I was unmoved. I did think the building was pretty cool; a peek inside (it was still closed) showed an incredible 17 story open atrium. I would have liked to ride the elevator to the top and look down - the view

must be great!

Only about half a block south down Clark is the Daley Civic Center. The plaza here is home to one of the city's more famous bits of outdoor art - an unnamed sculpture by Picasso. Enjoy it - when else are you going to get a chance to touch a Picasso? I've never really thought of him as a sculptor, and I wonder how much of this one he did himself?

Picasso's fellow won't get lonely, since Jean Miro's Chicago is located almost directly across Washington Street, nestled in beside a stained glass display in the side wall of the Chicago Temple. Our visit with these large sculptures over, we continued east along Washington to the intersection with State Street

Across the street on the northeast corner is the old Marshall Fields department store. This used to be a Chicago tradition, but today has been bought by Macy's. It's still worth a stop in, if only to see the wonderful Tiffany Dome in the atrium. On the southwest corner of the same intersection is the Reliance building, considered the "precursor of the modern skyscraper". We didn't go in, but the outside is what you want to look at anyway - a bit of history standing there next to the sidewalk.

Walking a block south on State brought us face-to-face with the Carson Pirie Scott building - we recognized the ornamental metal facade from our guidebooks. It takes up the whole southeast corner, and is home to the oldest department store in Chicago. This intersection is also important because it's the center of the city grid; this is the dividing point between north/south and east/west designations on the streets.

We continued south down (now) South State and walked a block west on Madison to the First National Bank Plaza and the Four Seasons. This is a huge mosaic, decorated on four sides with scenes representing the seasons in Chicago. The artist was Marc Chagall, and the piece contains thousands of tiles. Out in front was one of the many "globes" decorating Chicago - it seems like every city has something like this now. These seemed to all have an environmentally-friendly/green theme to them.

About three blocks further south on Dearborn, we detoured into the Federal Center courtyard to visit Alexander Calder's Flamingo. This guy is huge, bright pink-orange, and kind of goofy. This is my kind of art. It was refreshing and bright against the black glass of the surrounding buildings and the day's drizzly skies.

For us, this was the end of our walking tour - we decided to catch several of the other important buildings at a later point in our weekend. After an hour and a half of walking, we had worked up an appetite, and headed east to the Van Buren station and the Artist's Cafe right across the street. Mmm...art and eggs. My kind of morning.