Revisiting Chicago with Hallie

 HALLIE EPHRON: Sometimes, you go back to a place you’ve visited before and it feels… completely new. I’d been to Chicago three times, but last week, when I visited again, it felt as if I was seeing it for the first time. 

This time I’d decided to splurge on *location* and booked a room at the Palmer House, a historic hotel (now a Hilton) around the corner from Art Institute of Chicago, a stone’s throw from Millenium Park and Buckingham Fountain, nearby The Bean, and Lake Michigan.

The hotel itself is pretty fantastic, the public spaces are amazing, even if it is packed with tourists and our room had barely enough room in it to turn around.

It’s set in a magnificent neighborood, even if you do nothing but walk around and gawk. Between Lake Michigan, broad streets, and open plazas, you can really SEE magnificent architecture all around you. 

It feels nothing like in Manhattan where it can feel as if you’re gazing up from the depths of a dark canyon when you crane your neck to glimpse skyscrapers towering above you. Even from dark corridors of downtown streets with the El running overhead, Chicago's sleek skyscrapers beckon from afar. 

It’s as if the streets are designed to show off the buildings. More skyscrapers can be seen from the magnificent (and way over-the-top) Buckingham fountain at Lake Michigan’s edge.

Of course we had to visit Anish Kapur’s Cloudgate sculpture – aka The Bean. It’s a magnet for tourists. I’m somewhere reflected in this picture but I’ve lost track of where. 

And beside it is the Frank Gehry designed Jay Pritzker pavilion, a performance center which looks for all the world like a gigantic tuna can that got attacked by a can opener. 

And a side trip to the Chicago Botanic Garden has breathtaking sights like this.

Of course I had to eat (several) Chicago style Red Hots (all-beef hot dog in a poppy seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, neon-green sweet pickle relish, chopped white onion, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, pickled sport peppers and celery salt). They're VERY colorful and surprisingly delicious.  

Do you have a favorite city to go back to, one that feels new each time out?