First full day in Chicago. We started the day at a great bakery with a “Chicago Egg McMuffin” & coffee recommended by our concierge in the hotel, Arturo. He was a sweetheart. So, after getting sustenance (from Arturo’s recommendations) we made our way along the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave, which is not a mile but 3/4 of a mile and is the shopping area where you could drop a LOT of money) to hop on the “Hop On Hop Off” bus and tour the city for 2 1/2 hours. The stores on the Mag Mile are high end - Tiffany’s, Burberry, Stuart Weizmann, etc. The Burberry storefront is made of titanium, steel and other stuff that cost 1.2 million dollars. That’s just the outside. The interior cost $900,000. What a great tour we had on the Hop On Hop Off bus! We learned a lot about Chicago and its history. We take it in every city we travel to and have never been disappointed. The first guide, Becca, had a nasally voice and was very annoying but Luke, who took over, was very informative and his voice was easy to listen to. It was a decent day - a little overcast but warm enough to enjoy the top deck on the double decker bus. There are so many beautiful, eclectic buildings in Chicago. They really take pride in their city. Toronto could use some tips from Chicago about the waterfront for sure.

After a deep dish pizza lunch at Giordino’s (another great recommendation from Arturo) we walked to the Art Institute of Chicago. It is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. It houses over 300,000 works of art. What a beautiful building with many well known artists (and not so well known, by me at least). An interesting fact: the names of many of the artists are engraved on the building face but they got Michelangelo’s name wrong. It’s spelled Michael Angelo! Apparently because of this it is rated as one of the top 3 best art museums in the world. You have to be perfect to be higher than that, I guess. We closed the place down and didn’t come close to seeing all the works of art.

It had started to rain while we we in the museum so we walked in the rain to our hotel (about 30minutes) and decided to stay in with some wine and cheese & crackers. We were still full from the pizza.

Sorry for the pictures. I can’t seem to get them aligned properly. I’m having trouble with this blog - it’s not saving the blog; I’m having trouble uploading pics and aligning them so they’re not upside down or sideways.