The Unknown City of Chicago

In the U.S., there’s a saying usually ascribed to Native Americans about getting another person’s perspective by “walking a mile in their moccasins.”

As a traveler, it’s always interesting to see my country through another’s eyes.

As I scanned my local newspaper the other day, I noticed an Associated Press article in the Sports section about how Chicago is trying to convince international officials to pick their city to host the Summer Olympics.

Apparently Chicago’s international image is pretty much summed up by….the gangster Al Capone.

Industrial grit and grime. Violence.

This is not at all the city that I’ve visited, but when you live in a big country and travelers tend to cluster in well-known coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, it’s natural that a sprawling Midwestern place on Lake Michigan might tend to be overlooked.

In the AP article, Edinburgh resident Carol Morrison is quoted: “It’s much more visually stunning than I’d expected.”

Gosh, yes, Chicago is that.

I visited last summer with my teen daughter to speak at the BlogHer blogging conference, and even though I’d been there before, I was struck anew by the energy, verve, sports enthusiasm, beautiful parks, dazzling architecture, and stunning hotels.

If you like history and amazing buildings, I strongly recommend the 90-minute docent-led Chicago Architecture Foundation river cruise (what, you didn’t know that Chicago has lovely rivers? See, you should visit….)

The museums alone could keep a visitor tied up inside for days.

For a hard look at press freedom and freedom of speech in general, there’s the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum. For mind-blowing beauty, there’s the Art Institute of Chicago (I was crushed that Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting Nighthawks was gone when we visited….it was on loan to the MFA in Boston.) For T-Rex-sized portions of natural history, there’s the Field Museum.

Inside “the Loop,” the main downtown area, I was never concerned about my personal safety, even at night.

Some parents might be horrified, but my teen walked from the Navy Pier to the Field Museum on her own, and I never worried about her.

Sorry, Al Capone and assorted gangsters no longer rule Chicago.

Poke around in the Chicago Tribune‘s travel section for plenty of visitor fun in what we call the Windy City or the City of Big Shoulders.

Now this magnificent city is one of my favorites;  without pretension, relatively clean, and world-class museums like the Art Institute with its Monet collection (and my personal favorite, Nighthawks.)

But lets’s talk about how to arrive in Chicago by air – via the Midway airport, if possible.

The big main aviation hub at O’Hare Airport is not bad, but it is much further outside the city. To use Midway, you’ll probably need to fly in on Southwest Airlines (although a few other carriers use the airport) but that’s OK with me because I like Southwest. Their crews seem to actually be happy with their jobs, and they don’t treat passengers as though we were inconvenient annoyances.

One year I had to leave Austin super-early in the morning and fly into Midway. At first I was pretty annoyed, but that’s when I discovered that by arriving so much closer in, with quick access to Chicago Transit Authority public transport options, I could be in the downtown Loop eating pancakes at Lou Mitchell’s by about 9:30 am, even if I took a quick spin around the Loop on the Brown Line of the El (elevated subway) to see the sights.

After breakfast, the whole day stretched before me, and I was already located in the thick of the action.

Moral of the story – never assume that all airports are the same. You could be putting a fine breakfast at risk.

And if you plan a trip to any country, always try to explore a little bit beyond “the usual” places….and don’t rely on a city’s reputation from the 1920s.