Best Sites to See in Chicago, Illinois

Chicago is one of the best tourist cities in the world. It's compact, easy to navigate on public transportation and full of surprises. Here are the "top ten" things to see and do in Chicago.

Number 10: Universities

Chicago's institutes of higher learning are world famous. From Hyde Park on the south to suburban Evanston on the north, college campuses are great for wandering on a sultry summer's day.

The Adler Planetarium (left), Shedd Aquarium (center) and Field Museum (right) are grouped together in Chicago's Museum Campus along the lakefront. (Photo by Susan McKee)

The University of Chicago, where more winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics have taught than anywhere else in the world, also claims renowned educator John Dewey and sociologist Robert Park. The first controlled nuclear reaction occurred there as part of World War II's Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. The Oriental Institute includes a newly renovated museum to display its vast collection of ancient art and artifacts from the Mesopotamia (that's what we used to call Iraq).

Northwestern University has a 90-year-old Shakespeare Garden on its Evanston campus that draws fans from around the globe to see a 70- by-100-foot plot of land with flowers, shrubs, trees and herbs mentioned in the Bard's sonnets and plays.

Number 9: Neighborhoods

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods - 77 to be precise.

Traditional Asian details mark the historic On Leong Building in Chicago's Chinatown. (Photo by Susan McKee)

Best known is Chinatown, just south of the Loop (Chicago's downtown). The ornate red and gold gate over Wentworth Avenue at Cermak Road marks the entrance to a dozen square blocks packed with 59 restaurants and twice as many shops.

In fact, Chinatown is so tightly packed that it's exploded its borders - don't miss the new section north of Cermak.

Chicago's Mexican-American community has displaced the Czechs and Slovaks in Pilsen, a neighborhood around 18th Street and Ashland Avenue. Frequent celebrations are always bringing crowds to the streets.

Heading west from Ridge Avenue on Devon Avenue takes you to Chicago's Indo-Pakistani neighborhood. If you'd like to sample a curry, try on a sari or ogle gold jewelry, this is the place.

Andersonville, along Clark Street north of Foster, is a neighborhood in transition from Swedish to Middle Eastern. Where else can you pick up a jar of lingonberries and a freshly baked bag of pita bread!

Visitors can travel the world on one of the city's 20 different Neighborhood Tours, which start at the Chicago Cultural Center each Saturday morning.

Number 8: Festivals, Parades and other special events

There's always something special happening in Chicago. The Printers Row Book Fair June 5 and 6 five tented blocks in the historic Printers Row district and showcases the nation's most diverse booksellers displaying new, used and antiquarian books for sale. Annually the Book Fair offers more than 90 free literary programs.). The Gold Coast Art Fair is Aug. 6-8, Chicago Air & Water Show Aug. 20-22, and many, many more.

Ethnic parades and festivals are a Chicago trademark. The annual Midsommarfest is June 12-13 in Andersonville, including Old-world Swedish traditions (such as the dance around the Maypole). A parade celebrating Puerto Rican Day marches along Columbus Drive from Balbo to Monroe on June 19.

Number 7: Food

More than 3.5 million people visited The Taste of Chicago last summer. You might want to visit the world's largest outdoor food festival this year (it's June 25-July 4 in Grant Park). Admission is free - you just pay for what you eat.

If you'd rather do your dining in restaurants, the city has thousands of choices (between 7,000 and 15,500 - depending on who's counting). Editors of the Robb Report magazine named it "America's most exceptional dining destination" in 2003.

Tops is the award-winning Charlie Trotter's in Lincoln Park There are only three dining options each evening - set menus of about eight courses each. Each selection, varying with the seasons, is exquisite. Order a flight of wines to go with your choices, and the prices hit the stratosphere (but worth every morsel and sip).

The emblematic Chicago dish remains more down to earth. Deep-dish pizza has been drawing diners to Gino's East and Pizzerias Uno and Due for decades.

Number 6: Performing Arts

Music, theatre, opera and dance flourish in the Second City. It's claimed the term "jazz" was coined here in 1914, and of course the Blues Brothers are Chicagoans.

Venerable icons are the Lyric Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but culture vultures also have discovered the new North Loop Theater District. In the Old Town area is Steppenwolf, home to such well-known actors as John Malkovich, Gary Sinise and Laurie Metcalf.

There are great music festivals in Grant Park - all with free admission - including Gospel, Blues and Country Music (all in June) and Jazz in September. Now under construction on the northern edge of the park is the sinuous metal shell of the controversial Music Pavilion by Frank Gehry, which should be open in time for the Millennium Park celebration July 16.

Number 5: Sports

The quintessential Chicago experience is an afternoon double-header at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs.

If a Cubs game doesn't fit your schedule, check out their cross-town rivals, the White Sox, playing at U.S. Cellular Field (formerly Comiskey Park).

Sports teams for other seasons include the NFL's Chicago Bears, basketball's Chicago Bulls, hockey's Chicago Blackhawks and Major League Soccer's Chicago Fire.

Number 4: Shopping

Downtown shopping began on began on State Street with the opening of the original Marshall Field's Department store in 1852. Field's is still in the Loop (named for its surrounding "loop" of elevated train tracks) as is Carson Pirie Scott, with its ornate ironwork entrance dating from 1899.

North Michigan Avenue - known as the Magnificent Mile - is a browser's delight. In addition to the myriad options street side, four vertical malls together offer some 250 department stores and specialty shops. Look for Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom's, Bloomingdale's, Rand McNally, Crate & Barrel, Burberry's and more.

Just to the west, the River North neighborhood is the newest magnet for art galleries, auction houses, antique dealers and jewelers who love the spacious loft buildings. This newly gentrified area stretches a half-dozen blocks north from the Merchandise Mart. Once open to the trade only, that mammoth emporium now includes an 80-store retail complex and a special series of public showrooms for kitchen and bath products.

Number 3: Museums

There are more than four dozen museums in Chicago, from the obscure to the world famous.

The John G. Shedd Aquarium is the largest indoor aquarium in the world. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the largest collection of Impressionist paintings outside the Louvre in Paris. The largest Latino cultural institution in the United States is Chicago's Mexican Fine Arts Museum. The Adler Planetarium was the first in the Western Hemisphere.

But, Chicago also is home to the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Smith, Museum of Stained Glass Windows, American Police Center and Museum…a seemingly endless list.

If you can see only one, make it the Museum of Science and Industry. Opened in 1933, this south side landmark is chock full of opportunities for discovery. My favorite remains Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle, but there's a World War II German submarine, replica of an Illinois coal mine, and the newest blockbuster, a DNA double-helix structure dedicated last year by its discoverer (and Chicago native) Dr. James D. Watson.

If you have more time, add a visit to the Museum Campus on the south side of downtown. Grouped together are the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum of Natural History (home of "Sue", the biggest T-rex fossil ever unearthed) and Adler Planetarium.

Number 2: Architecture

One of the best ways to see the city's architecture is on board one of the tours offered on the river by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. (Photo by Susan McKee)

Chicago is a microcosm of modern building -- the first steel frame skyscraper was built here in 1885. Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Mies van der Rohe, Helmut Jahn and hundreds of others have created a "living museum of architecture."

Highlights in the Loop include the Chicago Cultural Center, Auditorium Building and the magnificently Art Deco style Chicago Board of Trade. The best view in town is from the Sears Tower Skydeck at sunset!

North of the Chicago River, Tribune Tower has exterior walls imbedded with actual bits of famous buildings - Westminster Abbey, Taj Mahal and Arc de Triomphe among them. Across the street is the Wrigley Building, designed to look like a "luscious birthday cake". The fanciful Water Tower is one of the few buildings to survive the disastrous 1871 Chicago fire.

Number 1: The lake!

Chicago would not have existed without Lake Michigan (it's the location of an ancient portage site connecting the Atlantic with the Gulf via the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River).

Waterfronts in other cities are crowded with factories, highways or ports, but Chicago celebrates its lakefront with an unparalleled system of public parks.

Daniel H. Burnham, who was chief of construction for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, envisioned a comprehensive outline of development for Chicago that included parks connected by landscaped boulevards. Centerpiece of his 1909 plan is Grant Park.

No visit to Chicago is complete without a visit to this lakefront oasis. To the north, check out Navy Pier, an entertainment and shopping complex that began life as a dock for Lake Michigan freighters. Now it's home to a replica of the 150-foot Ferris wheel that made its debut at the World's Columbian Exposition.

Right in the middle of Grant Park is Buckingham Fountain, twice as large as its inspiration, the Latona Basin at Versailles, France. Don't miss the nighttime light shows (between Memorial Day and Labor Day).

Chicago's best festivals take place right here along Lake Michigan. And remember, in the summer the weather is "cooler by the lake".

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