What to Do in Chicago
The Friendly Giant on the Lake

Chicago is a people-friendly megapolis with urban spirit and livable neighborhoods. You'll never run out of things to see and do in Chicago. Friendly, sophisticated Chicago is famous for its Important architecture, cuisine, great shopping, diverse neighborhoods and outstanding museums. Visitors can enjoy recreation, beaches and parks on Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. This beautiful town is also known for its ethnic neighborhoods like Little Italy and Chinatown, its summer festivals and outdoor concerts, and lots of unusual specialty museums. For dinner there's Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, sizzling steakhouses and cosmopolitan eateries featuring world cuisines. Professional sports are also a big part of life in Chicago.

Here are the highlights of what to do in Chicago.

1. What To Do in Chicago The Art Institute
2. What To Do in Chicago The Field Museum
3. What To Do in Chicago Millennium Park
4. What To Do in Chicago Sears Tower (Willis)
5. What To Do in Chicago The Museum of Science & Industry
6. What To Do in Chicago Navy Pier
7. What To Do in Chicago Shedd Aquarium
8. What To Do in Chicago Lincoln Park Zoo
9. What To Do in Chicago Magnificent Mile of Shopping
10. What To Do in Chicago University of Chicago
11. What To Do in Chicago Oak Park Architecture
12. What To Do in Chicago Nightlife
13. What To Do in Chicago Professional Sports
14. More About What To Do in Chicago

Chicago, nicknamed The Second City and the Windy City, is actually the third largest city in the United States. Chicago covers 228 square miles with about 29 miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan. The city is centered around the downtown Loop, which defines the North Side and South Side areas. Chicago is the number one place in the U.S. for conventions and trade shows.

What To Do in Chicago The Art Institute

The Art Institute of Chicago is the center of the art scene with its world-renowned collections. There's a free guided art tour every afternoon, plus the Garden Restaurant and a reconstruction of the 1893 Stock Exchange Trading Room. The Institute collection includes painting masterpieces, the best by the best, from Seurat, Monet, Renoir, Toulouse-Latrec, Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Kandinsky, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper and the iconic American Gothic by Grant Wood. There are thousands more works to engage you, the European paintings, American arts, photography, Asian art, African and American Indian art, arms and armor, paperweights, and 68 miniature period interiors.

What To Do in Chicago The Field Museum

Field Museum, named for its benefactor the retail magnate Marshall Field, is dedicated to anthropology and paleontology, featuring cultures and environments from ancient Egypt to modern Africa Meet Sue, the world's largest and most complete tyrannosaurus rex. There are animal dioramas, masks and drums from New Guinea Islanders, reconstructions of ancient Africa, a 19th century Pawnee Earth Lodge and a nature walk through wildlife habitats. The Underground Adventure lets you enter into the subterranean world of bugs. There are also unexpected treasures, fossils and a breathtaking collections of gems, minerals and jade artifacts.

What To Do in Chicago Millennium Park

Millennium Park is Chicago's brand-new twenty-four-acre park. Its outdoor amphitheater was designed by architect Frank Gehry. You'll enjoy artwork, fountains, botanic garden, cafes, live entertainment and people-watching, mostly free. Cloud Gate, also called The Bean, is an iconic reflective stainless steel sculpture. Crown Fountain, created by Jaume Plensa, presents the faces of a thousand Chicagoans projected one after another, larger than life. Other outdoor sculptures around town are by Picasso, Alexander Calder, Mies van der Rohe, Jean DuBuffet and Marc Chagall and Claus Oldenburg.

What To Do in Chicago Sears Tower - Willis Tower

Sears Tower, now renamed Willis Tower, was until recently the tallest building in the world. From the Skydeck on the 103rd floor, you get an awesome panoramic view of the city. On a clear day you can see four states and 40 miles away You'll recognize the John Hancock Center, Grant Park built on the site of the Great Chicago Fire, Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears football team for over 30 years, Navy Pier, the United Center sports center, Marina City two more skyscrapers that look like corncobs, Merchandise Mart the largest commercial building covers two blocks, McCormick Place the convention center, Lake Michigan, the largest of the five Great Lakes, and the Chicago River 156 mile with 52 opening bridges. The Chicago River is famous for the engineering in 1900 that reversed the direction of the river flow for sanitary reasons.

What To Do in Chicago The Museum of Science & Industry

The Museum of Science & Industry was originally part of the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition. The exhibits, focusing on inventions, industry, and how we live, provide a marvelous afternoon adventure. Interactive exhibits show the heights of space exploration and the depths of coal mining. Walk through a model of the human heart, visit the Silver Streak Zephyr train, and marvel at the real German U-boat submarine from 1941. The Museum has recreated main street in 1910 Chicago with free silent movies and old-fashioned ice cream parlor. There's the Brain Food Court. There's a robotic assembly line that makes toys, and an exhibit of early computers and data processing machines. See what's playing at the five-story Omnimax Theater. The Fairy Castle is filled with thousands of miniatures, including the world's smallest Bible.

What To Do in Chicago Navy Pier

Navy Pier on Lake Michigan is the most popular attraction in Chicago, a year-round playground for family fun. Ride the Ferris Wheel, the Carousel, and Wave Swinger. Then walk through the Funhouse Maze. There's miniature golf, Shakespeare Theatre, and Smith Museum of Stained-Glass Windows. Sometimes you'll see performances by a comedy group, a brass band or a singers. Visit the six-story IMAX Theatre, take a boat tour on the lake or just sit back and enjoy the views of the city.

What To Do in Chicago Shedd Aquarium

John G. Shedd Aquarium is an amazing aquarium on the lakefront. It is home to two thousand different species of marine animals from big whales and dolphins to tiny seahorses. Get a fun, underwater view at the Oceanarium. There's an infinity pool for marine mammals. Other watery environments include the Caribbean Coral Reef and the Wild Reef. Enjoy the shows put on by trained dolphins and beluga whales. Get really close to tarantulas, African bullfrogs and boas. Experience the 4-D Special FX Theater.

What To Do in Chicago Lincoln Park Zoo

Lincoln Park Zoo was started in 1868, which makes it one of the oldest zoos in the U.S., and still absolutely free. This is the second-most popular attraction in Chicago. it has sea lions, polar bears, rollicking apes, lions, elephants and a full roster of animal life. Get in touch with animals at the Children's Zoo. Sample farm life in a big red barn with cows a-milking, butter a-churning and chicks a-hatching. Nearby are Lincoln Park, Lincoln Park Conservatory and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

What To Do in Chicago Magnificent Mile of Shopping

Magnificent Mile, Chicago's premier shopping destination, is actually four miles along North Michigan Avenue. Water Tower Place and Chicago Place are giant vertical shopping malls where big-name department stores, famous designer boutiques and chain stores rub elbows. The Water Tower & Pumping Station are two of the few structures that survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Great Fire destroyed seventeen thousand buildings after Mrs. O'Leary's cow supposedly kicked over a lantern. Skyscrapers of architectural note in this area are the John Hancock Center, the Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building and the Hotel Inter-Continental.

What To Do in Chicago University of Chicago

The University of Chicago opened in 1892 with the support of oil millionaire John D. Rockefeller. Known for its stellar faculty of Nobel prize winners and a roster of famous graduates, this private university has several museums and galleries that are open to the public, the Oriental Institute and the Smart Museum of Art, a couple of magnificent Gothic-style chapels, Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, a remarkable library of 7 million volumes, and a 72-bell carillon in the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. There are a dozen outdoor sculptures, including the Henry Moore sculpture to commemorate Enrico Fermi who generated the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in here 1942.

What To Do in Chicago Oak Park Architecture

In the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Frank Lloyd Wright, famous architect and creator of Prairie Style architecture, lived and worked for twenty years. His legacy is an outdoor museum of 25 buildings. Take a tour of his unique work around Oak Park, as well as his own home and studio. Prairie style architecture uses lots of poured concrete and overhanging roofs on low-slung buildings integrated with nature. Wright also designed the interiors, art glass, fixtures and furniture for his houses.

What To Do in Chicago Nightlife

Chicago has even more to entertain you. Chicago is home of the blues, a music style of plaintive, soulful lyrics and musicians like Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon. The blues music scene of clubs, bars and joints is a big, busy part of Chicago nightlife. Comedy clubs are serious business in Chicago. Second City is the comedy venue that fostered the comedians of Saturday Night Live, famous laugh- like John Belushi, Mike Myers and Bill Murray.

What To Do in Chicago Professional Sports

Professional Sports are a big deal in Chicago, with loyalties divided among the Cubs and White Sox baseball teams, the Chicago Bears for football, the Chicago Bulls for basketball, the Chicago Blackhawks in NHL hockey, and the Wolves in AHL hockey. There's also soccer, thoroughbred racing, and many special events to enhance a vacation.

More About What To Do in Chicago

• 
  Sunset Over Chicago
  The mansions of the Prairie Avenue district and the Kenwood Historic District are striking.
• Washington Park was designed by Olmsted and Vaux who also created Central Park in New York. There's more to see at the Osaka Japanese Gardens and the Chicago Botanic Garden.
• Grant Park has the famous Buckingham Memorial Fountain. It is the location of three world-class museums, the Art Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium.
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  Buckingham Memorial Fountain
  Grant Park
  Unique specialty museums include the DuSable Museum of African-American History, the South Shore Cultural Center, Hull House of social worker and Nobel peace laureate Jane Addams, Museum of Contemporary Photography, National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Holography, Douglas Dawson Gallery, Mexican Fine Arts Center & Museum,
• Harold Washington Library is the world's largest public library.

I hope you have an exciting vacation in Chicago.
I wish you a very happy day.

Jeff, Vacation Welcome

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What to do in Chicago



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