It is almost impossible to give a brief review of Chicago as a great travel destination. It is only fair to say that any visitor to Chicago will experience a boom of an emotional activity, exploring the city's cultural landmarks, eating "the best food in America", taking a rest in lakefront parks and participating in one of numerous Chicagoans' favorite festivals. A Chicago vacation is a visit to the home of world-championship sports teams, an internationally acclaimed symphony orchestra, renowned architecture and top-rated shops.
A travel to Chicago is an opportunity to view the birthplace of modern American architecture. Due to the genius of such architects, as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Helmut Jahn and hundreds of others, the city is a living museum of historic buildings and modern advanced masterpieces that formed the American architecture. The Chicago Cultural Center, an architectural showplace for the lively and visual arts, is a great place to start learning the famed Chicago architecture.
Chicago is the "Best Cycling City in the United States with a Population of More Than One Million" (Bicycle Magazine 2001) and it is only good for a visitor, who has just dined in one of thousands of the best restaurants of America, that Chicago has excellent facilities for cycling and walking. Numerous sports festivals and competitions among both professionals and newcomers add much to a burning-calories effect after a hearty meal.
An excursion through numerous Chicago museums is a necessity for any Chicago vacation. The collection of museums is diverse and explores a variety of subjects, including Chicago's history, the modern art, the African-American culture, astronomy, nature and much more. There is a number of museums, which cater to visitors with specific tastes, such as the International Museum of Surgical Science. You should plan your Chicago vacation with a day spent at the Museum Campus that contains the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, The Field Museum at Roosevelt Road and the Lake. The John G. Shedd Aquarium/Oceanarium has the world's largest indoor collection of aquatic mammals, amphibians, invertebrates, reptiles and fish.
The crown of a Chicago vacation will be a visit to a new Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, opened in 2004. This marvelous exposition sums up everything, achieved in Chicago through the years: its advanced architecture and urban design, sculpture and garden pruning. Frank Gehry's Music Pavilion in the Millennium Park has over four thousand fixed seats and an additional capacity for seven thousand people to enjoy the performances of the Grant Park Music Festival and other free city events. The park is home to the Cloud Gate, one of the world's largest outdoor sculptures, a hundred and ten ton, sixty six foot-long, thirty three foot-high and forty eight foot-wide mirror-finished stainless steel elliptical installation. All that and many other highlights of the Millennium Park in Chicago make it an unparallel construction in the world.
Finish your Chicago vacation with shopping. The world-known "Magnificent Mile", running along Michigan Avenue from the Chicago River to Oak Street, features hundreds of specialty shops and boutiques, presenting top quality goods from around the world. Conclusively, well-developed transportation and a recognition of Chicago as a city recommended for walking allows its visitors to cover all of Chicago, from is famous landmarks to its amazing variety of cultural institutions and attractions, by plane, boat, bike, bus, or on foot... what do you like best?