Weekend getaways: Chicago

Even though I certainly do love my long vacations, there’s a lot to be said about weekend getaways. After all, that’s how I saw most of Europe during my semester abroad in London. Jetting off for a three-day weekend to Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin and Brussels was easy when each was less than a two-hour plane ride away.

Yummy stuffed pizza at Giordano's

Though our country is much bigger than all of Europe, anything within a three-hour plane ride is pretty manageable for a long weekend. And there’s plenty of the states that I’ve never stepped foot in. So I’m starting a mini-series on the blog of all of my weekend getaways — starting from the more recent ones close to home, then going back to my European ones and topped off with exciting new ones as they happen.

First up: my April trip to Chicago — my first time there. The boy and I left New York after work on Thursday evening, arriving in Chicago in time to grab a dinner of delicious deep-dish, followed by an early night to prepare for the next day.

Cloud Gate (a.k.a., the Bean)

On Friday we were up nice and early and set off on our separate adventures for the day — him to C2E2 (Comic Con) and me to explore the city center. Lucky for me the day was a gorgeous one and I had my fill of walking around and snapping photos of Chicago’s landmarks. In the evening we had a lovely dinner on Navy Pier at a swanky restaurant and then went to an 11 p.m. show at Second City.

Wrigley Field

The next day we slept in a bit (we were on vacation, after all) and headed out to Wrigley for a Cubs game. Following that we walked around Wicker Park and Lakeview and finished the night by strolling through the Loop checking out Chicago by night.

Museum of Science and Industry

On Sunday we had a flight in the early evening, so we checked out, left our bags at the hotel and headed down to the Museum of Science and Industry. After several hours there, we picked up our bags and headed on over to O’Hare and went on our merry way home. I feel like a got a good sense of Chicago (at least a touristy sense), and felt much more rested than if I had just hung around home for the weekend. And I only cashed in one vacation day.

A nice, brief weekend getaway is a great way to mildly quell the itch from that pesky travel bug bite ... at least for a little bit.