So your plane leaves at 9:50 PM from O’Hare airport and you need to check out from the motel at noon. What do you do? Well, using the information I had from the first day I was in Chicago, I took all my luggage, dragged it back to Union Station, stuffed it into a locker and, armed with only my backpack and camera, I was ready to visit some more of Chicago. This time, the weather was excellent: the sun was shining, the sky was clear :D.
The basic route for this day was from Union Station passing the Willis Tower right onto Millenium Park. From Millenium Park I headed towards the Hancock Observatory, which was my first target of the day. Along the way I was also able to do some really nice shots of the city. While doing the photos I noticed, that the sky started to fill up with planes doing acrobatic moves, while painting interesting dust-shapes onto the blue sky. It was Navy Week in Chicago, so the Hancock Tower (or the top of any other high-rise) was the place to be that day.
I was lucky to get to the Hancock Observatory before the crowds, so after paying the $17.50 simple pass I was quickly able to get to the top. The tower is not the highest in Chicago, the Willis Tower is, but I have already visited the latter while I was there the last time, plus, they say, that the view from the Hancock Observatory is nicer. Indeed there is probably more to see from the Hancock Observatory as David Schwimmer points it out in the audio-guide (included in the entry price). Being Navy Week it was also nice to see the acrobatic moves of the planes from above. One can rarely have that perspective 🙂 .
After getting bored of the view from the top, I decided to visit the green area to the north of downtown. The place is called Lincoln Park, and one can get there on foot via Lakeshore Drive. I guess the main attraction for me there was the Lincoln Park Zoo which is a freely visitable zoo in Chicago. The zoo is actually quite fun, with many interesting animals from all over the world. The animals seemed quite happy, living in large enclosures with ample space to move around in. For me zoos are always big attraction (I guess I stayed a child at this chapter 🙂 ). I am always fond of strolling among animals having a look at how they behave in their enclosures…
I think the only down-side to the day was the fact that the planes continued circling above the lake and the downtown area, which is OK for small propeller planes, but when the navy fighter-planes and the Blue Angels started to circle, the noise got really unbearable (although it was awesome 😀 ). The show stopped for a while at around 4 PM, so I could enjoy a nice stroll back to the southern park, just to see once more one of the biggest attractions of Chicago before leaving to the airport. The target was Buckingham Fountain, the famous fountain one can see at the beginning of the popular sitcom Married with Children. The idea with this fountain is to make sure to be there on the hour. That is when it looks best, trust me 😉 .
After some relaxing a bit in the sun at Buckingham Fountain, I was ready to leave Chicago. It was my third time there, but I hope not the last… :).
I have completed the albums with more photos: here.
[22]