Since we only have two full days here in Chicago, we wanted to get an overview of the city and decided to do that by taking a river cruise. Luckily for us, all of the cruises depart from The Navy Pier. The pier sits on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan and it’s Chicago’s number one tourist attraction. It has restaurants, shops, rides and it’s the departure point for all of the river/lake cruises. We weren’t sure exactly how long it would take us, but we got down to the pier in about twenty minutes. We spent a couple of hours exploring the pier, and grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading to the boat.
Our Architecture River Cruise was with Shoreline Sightseeing. What was nice about this boat was that it was open air so that you can get a 360 degree view. The tour was approximately an hour and it’s amazing what you can learn in such a short period of time. We were worried that we wouldn’t see anything because the fog was so thick. But as we got closer to downtown, the fog magically disappeared. It was so cool seeing the different types of architecture. Chicago is a fascinating city and I want to come back again to explore more of it.
At the end of our cruise, our tour guide said that Shoreline Sightseeing offers a water taxi service. We went to their information booth and it would only cost us $4 to get to The Magnificient Mile. The mile is home to some of the finest shopping and restaurants. We spent a few hours walking up and down the mile.
One of the reasons that we booked the Hampton Inn was that it was basically next door to Maggiano’s Little Italy. This is one of our favourite restaurants. Karen was able to sweet talk the waiter into allowing us to eat family style, even though we didn’t have the minimum 4 people. What that entails is picking two each of appetizers, salads, pastas, entrees and dessert. And so began the over two hour dinner. The food was fabulous and we have lots of leftovers (three bags to be exact) which we will enjoy tomorrow.
Stay tuned for more adventures tomorrow.
WAH!!! I want to be there with you