Ask500

1) Visit Michigan avenue during the day

2) Visit the Navy Piers

3) Check out an authentic Blues bar (even if you don't enjoy Blues), you'll be blown away.

A definite for Michigan Ave during the day. There's also some great local eateries around there (Michigan Ave), too but I don't remember the names. You can tell the difference between the local places for residents and the fancy places meant for tourists though. Make SURE you find a place that serves "Chicago pizza." A must to try - and not at a restaurant called "Uno's" either. That's a chain place. Look for a local place. The food is good anywhere you go. Ethnic as you want to get - lots and lots of delis. Ask at the front desk of the hotel - they'll steer you right, I'm sure. A "Chicago style hot dog" is fun to try, too. It was good - and it's a big local thing so ya gotta do it. (lol)

The Chicago museum of Science and Natural History is INCREDIBLE if you like museums. A lot of really great exhibits and they've always got something great floating through. All the museums are good - the Chicago Museum of Art has some of the greatest masterpieces that have landed in the US, probably only second to the Smithsonian when it comes to large, impressive collections. So if art's your thing - it's worth a peek, too.

Make sure you go to the observation deck of the Sears tower at night - the sight of a city that large from that high is incredible. I went to the top of John Hancock during the day and Sears at night - the night visit was better by far. Worth the bucks they charge. Took my breath and still one of my first memory flashes when I think back about my visits there.

And enjoy the bejeezus out of the blues bar - that's another one he called right.

I just remembered there's TWO museums about science and history if I'm not mistaken. For some reason it confused me because ours is all housed as one. I remember when I visited last I saw the Titanic exhibit at the museum I visited (it was traveling thorough at the time) and then discovered there was an exhibit at a DIFFERENT museum that featured "Sue" - (the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton that was found here in the States nearly complete) also traveling through at the same time. I remember being disappointed because I'd wanted to see both but was unable due to time because they were in different places. Check with the people at the desk at your hotel (if those types of things interest you) because I'm sure they have plenty of information about them.

I was pretty young and don't remember much from the mid-1960s when I was there; and besides, most of it is probably quite different now. But there is a regular weekly online column to which I subscribe which might be of interest. Called 'The Straight Dope,' it appears in a Chicago paper and features a bit on the city of Chicago every week, from why the number system on the streets exists to where the best coffee can be found. If you subscribe, you can browse back through the archives for entire columns and read some interesting trivia plus maybe find some places that will be more intriguing to visit set in context.

Art Institute of Chicago - I saw "American Gothic" there, among other famous paintings.

http://www.artic.edu/aic/

Chicago History Museum might be interesting.

Have coffee at Intelligentsia