The Windy City

Moving on to our next destination and base for the next five days after enjoying a great relaxing time in New Orleans, we arrive to the second largest city in the USA after New York: Chicago. On the shores of lake Michigan it’s this marvellous city, where the skyscraper was born. Many wrongly still believe it was in New York City where they were first erected but that’s not right. Referred to as The Windy City as the most known nickname, it’s not only because of the likely chance to be windy, but because of years back of political issues and rivalries with Cincinnati and the World’s Fair to mark the 400th Anniversary of Columbus arrival to America.

The city was once the 4th largest in the world, in time after the Great Fire of Chicago that destroyed most of the city in 1871, and thereafter rebuilt in record time with the new legislation in safety on buildings, broad avenues, beautiful landscaping and overall care and beautification. This was the time where the skyscraper was born, the first steel-frame structure in height in 1885 (the Home Insurance Building). Such a vast playground of empty plots to be built opened and unprecedented case in which architects from all over the world wanted to leave their work in Chicago. The architecture of the city is one of the finest collections of all styles. No wonder you can find here a school of architecture that has become a pride to the world, the Chicago School.

The elegant and expensive Michigan Avenue, known as the Magnificent Mile, is the heart of the city. Most of the city icons can be found along its length and it is intersected in the middle by the Chicago River, the next main attraction. Coupled with this, crossing through the centre of the city’s heart you have the Big L, or The Loop. These are the elevated subway trains. A sight on themselves either if riding them or capturing them from the street. And dotted here and there the remaining masterpiece, its buildings and extensive parks, with a fabulous lake front.

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