Chicago Nesties
qbie18
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How to ride the trains in Chicago?
DH and I will be visiting Chicago Dec. 15-19. We will be staying at the Westin on Michigan Ave. and plan on traveling to
Grand Luxe Cafe
Second City on N. Wells
Millenium Park
Navy Pier
Christkindl Market
We have transit card passes to ride the buses/trains for the week we are there. I have looked and looked at the maps on transitchicago.com and just can't seem to figure them out. I don't really know how to read them. I can't figure out a route to get from one location to another. Also, how close are the different stations? I feel like a complete idiot, but I really need some help. Any pointers for navigating the city and reading city maps? Thanks so much!
Re: How to ride the trains in Chicago?
Michigan Avenue is beautiful right now with the lights and the snow! So you will have a great time!
You can walk to the Grand Lux cafe from your Hotel, and in my personal opinion I would just take a cab to second city.
To get to Millenium Park, Navy Pier, and the Christkindl Market get on the red line at the Chicago stop (from MI Ave go West on Chicago to get to it) and take the red line south(towards 95th St) and get off at Washington. That will put you directly on state street either in front of Macys (which is also a must see) and Navy Pier. From there go east on Washington to get to Millenium Park, and west on Washington to get to Christkindl Market.
A great tool to use for the buses and trains is
http://www.chicagotransitauthority.org/ and simply enter your starting and stopping address. it will provide you some good suggestions for buses and trains to use.
But basically, for all of the places you mentioned, the red line is what you will use which runs North and South along State Street in downtown.
Hope this helps and wasnt too confusing! Have a great time!
The Westin and the Grand Lux Cafe are a few blocks apart - at most. You have to walk a few blocks South and cross over Michigan Ave. I cannot remember the store right now but Grand Lux is above a store a corner.
As for getting to Navy Pier, if there is a bus that goes close to there that would be your best option, there isn't an eL stop that is close to there, but the walk wouldn't be to bad.
Millenium Park you are with in walking distance to that also, its not far from Grand Lux, on the corner of Michigan and Randolp. It's about a mile walk (10 minutes or so) from your hotel. Its on the same side of the street as the hotel, as your walking south, you'll see Millenium Park Grill and its right behind that, the Bean is quite noticable.
Have fun, there is nothing like Chicago, any time of the year!
its actually pretty darn easy once you are here. and your hotel front desk people or the concierge will be able to help you out for sure.
My guess is that most everything you are going to see/do will be either walking distance, or accessible via the Red Line Subway (which runs north/south along State Street) or via any number of buses that run along Michigan Ave (the #3 bus is always a good bet, as covers all of Michigan Ave from Roosevelt to Chicago... which is most of the parks, shopping, etc.).
Navy Pier also has CTA buses that go over there, or there is usually a free Trolley service during the holiday shopping season. The hotel will know more about the Trolley.
Because we're fancy like that.
If you search for directions to anywhere you want to go on google maps you can get walking or public transportation directions. Everything you mentioned is walking distance from your hotel (in my opinion). If you are not used to walking on a snowy/windy day, however, you might want to take a bus to second city and maybe the loop.