Day 1:

We started the day by taking the Blue line from O’ Hare Airport to Clark/Lake station and then transferred to State/Lake station. We had purchased the $10 day pass for the CTA and it served us well throughout our trip.

Chicago River

From the station its a close walk to the Riverwalk.

Parents @ Chicago Riverwalk
Karen @ Chicago Riverwalk

There are a lot of picturesque spots along the Chicago Riverwalk. We saw quite a few interesting and notable buildings including the Trump Tower.

Parents @ Chicago Riverwalk

A few minutes into the walk we came across the Vietnam Veternans Memorial.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

We walked the Riverwalk to Lower Michigan Avenue and then walked south towards Millenium Park.

Cloudgate

In the Millenium park lies one of the iconic Chicago attractions, the Cloud Gate. It was quite early in the morning and the crowds had not arrived yet and so we were able to get a few pictures without too many people around.

Selfie @ Cloud Gate

After spending about an hour at the Cloud Gate, we walked to the nearby Crown Fountain, a large LED video sculpture that was both interesting and cool.

Crown Fountain

Within a short walking distance of the Crown Fountain lies The Art Institute of Chicago. My parents really wanted to see the Art Institute because back in 1893, this was the location of the Parliament of the World’s Religions where Swami Vivekananda gave the famous speech.

Mom in front of Art Institute of Chicago

The place was not open yet and we did not see any memorial or statues outside so continued on. We walked next to Grant Park. Lying at the center of Grant Park is the Buckingham Fountain.

Buckingham Fountain @ Grant Park
Me and Karen @ Buckingham Fountain

From the fountain we walked across Lakeshore Drive to Lake Michigan.

Grant Park
Lake Michigan

After spending half hour admiring the skyline and the lake views we walked back to State/Van Buren station to take the CTA back to the airport.

Waiting for the train back to airport

Day 2:

We took the CTA Blue Line again from O’ Hare airport to Clark/Lake and switched to Brown Line to Fullerton Station. From the station we walked to Green City Market (farmers market). We did not find anything interesting at the market and continued our walk by the Pond Habitat Boardwalk.

Pond Habitat Boardwalk @ Lincoln Park

 

Finally we visited the Lincoln Park Zoo. A very interesting fact one should know is that this zoo does not carry any entry fee!!

Lincoln Park Zoo

One will be mistaken to think that a “free” zoo will not have many worthwhile things to see but you would be wrong. You could easily spend a whole day here walking around different enclosures to see various wildlife.

Gorilla @ Lincoln Park Zoo
River Otter @ Lincoln Park Zoo

After spending about 3 hours at the zoo we were starting to get hungry. We were not about to leave Chicago without trying out the famous “deep dish style Chicago Pizza”. I had researched various restaurants trying to find the best one and had settled on the famous Pequod’s Pizza. We took an Uber to the Claybourne street location.

Pequod’s Pizza, Chicago

After about a 20 minute wait we got our table and 45 minutes later we received the yummy goodness below.

Darkened Edge Deep Dish Pizza – Very Yummy!!

After lunch, we had an Uber drop us off at a nearby CTA station and took the train back to the airport.