CITY BREAK | CHICAGO
ILLUSTRATION BY ANNA SIMMONS
Stay at ...
The city tourism website choosechicago.com is a mine of information and includes a directory of hotels, where you can choose from the highly regarded 19th century guesthouse Villa D'Citta (from $129 per night), to the impossibly elegant five-star Waldorf Astoria (from $345 per night).
Ferris, his girlfriend Sloane and the fearful Cameron (the one I most identified with) enjoy the view from the top of Sears Tower, now known as Willis Tower (willistower.com). They had to lean forward into the windows, pressing their foreheads against the glass, to see straight down to street level from the building’s top floor, the Skydeck. So inspired, the owners built a new attraction called The Ledge – a retractable, fully glass box that extends out of the building on the 103rd floor, more than 400 metres above the ground. There is no obstruction to your view from either side, from above – or, terrifyingly, below. 72 |
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2013
I couldn’t bring myself to visit; the vertigo I might have been able to combat in my youth has got worse over the years and I had no wish to be rescued, whimpering, from high above the city. And so my dream of being Ferris, as always, lay in ruins – but Chicago nonetheless remains one of the greatest cities in the world to find yourself in when you have a day off. For more information on the Greeter programme, see choosechicago.com and chicagogreeter.com. Full details of The Ledge are available on theskydeck.com
Chicago’s grand dame of hotels, The Drake, is a bit of a diva herself and a definite candidate for best performance in a supporting role. Tom Cruise lived it up with call girl Rebecca de Mornay in the hotel’s Palm Court in Risky Business; Julia Roberts plotted the collapse of My Best Friend’s Wedding while staying there; and Mel Gibson dropped his daughter to her high school prom under the hotel marquee in What Women Want. You may also remember it from Continental Divide, starring the late Chicago native John Belushi, and from Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers. Perhaps the best reason to stay, though, is the Coq d’Or bar at street level. One of the first to reopen after the repeal of Prohibition, it is without question one of the most evocative and welcoming hotel bars in the world. And take a tip – the lakeview rooms are the best. Rooms from $199 a night. (140 East Walton Place, +1 312 787 2200; thedrakehotel.com thedrakehotel.com)
Above, Willis Tower’s Ledge is only for the brave. Right, a splash of colour on Dearborn Street.
AER LINGUS FLIES FROM DUBLIN TO CHICAGO DAILY.