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U.S. Travel Diaries - A Day at Millennium Park in Chicago, IL.

Chicago is one of the most beautiful metros in the U.S and is the most livable place in spite of the extreme winter with heavy snowfall and snow storms at times. There are good number of Indians in the city. Devon Street / Devon Avenue in Chicago is known as mini-India with number of Indian shops on either side of the main road.

Surprisingly, people in this place do not follow traffic rules properly which makes every Indian living in Chicago, 'feel at home'

This 'windy city' is full of tourist attractions which can be enjoyed in summer season only i.e in June / July and not even in April / May. Though you can visit these place in April / May, yet you feel the chill and need to go out with woolen garments.

It was before we moved from Chicago to Philadelphia, we made a visit to Millennium park. This is one of the top attractions of the city. We drove all the way from Des Plaines, the place where we lived, to Chicago downtown.
Driving on the clean roads of Chicago, we reached Millennium park. However parking is not an easy thing here. So better to take a public transit / cab. It was March and the weather was not suitable for going out. So, there were very few visitors to the place. With great difficulty, we could park our vehicle and walked all the way to the entrance.
The park is located at 201 E Radolph Street (between Michigan Ave & Columbus Ave) near the Lake Michigan Shoreline. It is the most important green space in the city and has few iconic structures like the Crown Fountain and Cloud Gate which attracts visitors.

The place was an industrial wasteland which has been transformed into beautiful public park. The park remains open from 6 a.m to 11 p.m daily and there is no entry fee. This is one of the lovely and lively place for visiting with family. Many free cultural activities and family fun festivals take place in this park with special ice-skating in winters.

After entering into the park, we walked up to Crown Fountain and had few clicks at this place.
This fountain is one of the important attractions of the park where you will find a tall structure made of glass blocks with flowing water and with a video projection of various artists of Chicago. The park will be full of activities in the summer season. As it was off season, we could hardly see visitors at this place. Due to the chill and windy weather, we couldn't enjoy much though it was a bright sunny day.

From the Crown Fountain, we walked to Cloud Gate which is the most attracted place of the park. This is a near bean shaped structure with highly polished stainless steel plates. It has high reflecting surface that reflects the famous skyline of Chicago. This is the most attracted place in the park and you can find the crowd standing in front of the bean shaped Cloud Gate where you can see your own reflection and the reflection of the city's skyline.
Interestingly, the artist who made this wonderful iconic structure is an Indian born named Anish Kapoor who has many such wonderful structures to his credit.

There are other attractions too like the Lurie Garden but we couldn't visit the place as it was off season. For dining, there is Park Grill even with an outdoor patio which gives a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline.

Indians, South Indians in particular can carry home-made food for better enjoyment.

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