Millenium Park & The Art Institute of Chicago

Today Chablis and I had to go to downtown Chicago and visit the Art Institute for a project she is working on for school.  Driving into Chicago during rush hour is a nightmare, so we left at 8 am and hopped onto the Metra train to go downtown. 

We rode the train to the end of the line, which is at Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago.  From there we had to walk just over a mile to the Art Institute.  We crossed over the canal and zig-zagged around, as there was a lot of construction going on.

Since the museum didn't open until 10:30, we decided to stop at Millennium Park first. 

Millennium Park is on the lake front and it's huge and beautiful.  It has fountains....

The Jay Pritzker Pavillion....

                                                              where I incidentially also found a geocache.......

(it's hidden somewhere close to this bench)

And of course, the world famous bean!!!!

The bean is so cool looking and I never get tired of visiting it.  Look at how well you can see the buildings across the street, reflected in the bean.  Isn't that neat?

It's fun to walk around and take pictures of your reflection....

You can even walk underneath it and take a photo up into it....

That's Michigan Ave. behind Chablis.....

The Art Institute is on the next block south of the park, so we just walked over...

I can finally say I caught a Lion by the tail!

There are some beautiful gardens on both sides of the museum and they have fountains and sculptures all over the place.

I even did a little phooning in front of a wall of granite....

Across the street from the Art Institute is a really interesting building called the Metropolitan Tower.  At one time it was one of the tallest buildings in Chicago, with 30 floors.  However, the cool thing about this building is the bee hive shaped tower at the top of it. 

I would love to get inside that bee hive!  I bet the view of Chicago from up there is amazing.

Come back tomorrow and I'll show you some pictures from inside the Art Institute.