HostDave wrote:It will be +/- 30 days.
A cross-country sprint, by your standards.
I expect to stay in Chicago for four nights, so any advice is welcome.
Chicago is one of the world's leading cities for architecture. If that interests you, there are walking tours, building visits, and guidebooks galore. The river/lake boat tours don't start until around May 1st.
The "Big Three" of museums are the Art Institute, Field Museum of Natural History, and Museum of Science and Industry. The last is the one you are least likely to see anything like anywhere this side of Munich's Deutsches Museum:
http://www.msichicago.org/Heading downstate, especially along the Mississippi River, you'll run into Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, native American sites, and of course the river itself.
At this point, we're planning to stay at the Hilton Homewood Suites.
The one on Grand Avenue? It's downtown-ish, but a bit north of the Loop (and across the Chicago River). So it will take a corresponding bit longer to get to some of what their webpage describes as "the infamous* Chicago attractions". It's a couple of blocks to an "L" stop (actually a subway at that point).
So where are you taking us for dinner
?
The classic Chicago dining experience is a neighborhood ethnic joint. In my neighborhood -- name your continent!
* same crowd as thinks that "pentultimate" is further than "ultimate"
