Chicago and its architecture

Today we spent the majority of the day taking in the sites of Chicago. The city is very architecturally diverse, my favourite being Art Deco:

We did a river cruise today and learned all about the different styles of architecture and the inspiration for each. This cruise was recommended to us by a few people we know and it did not disappoint. The most impressive piece of trivia that I can recall was the number of buildings over 15 stories that were built between 1920 and 1930 - over 120 buildings. Between 1930 and 1950 - only about 19. Quite interesting the drastic drop off during the depression and war. 

After our tour we walked down Michigan avenue which is where all of the shopping is located, but we didn't do any shopping. Another interesting point, Michigan ave is where the lake shore used to be, now the shore is much farther east due to the backfilling of earth during construction of Chicago. 

Here is a photo of a water tower that survived the Chicago fire in 1871, the only standing building still around today:

After walking we ate lunch and then made our way back to the hotel to dress warmer for the afternoon out and about.  We went to Millennium Park check out the bean:

After the bean we walked about a mile to the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears tower) to check out the sky deck located on the 103rd floor:

You could also stand on a glass platform which we did:

After the Willis tower we went for dinner to a restaurant called Chucks Manufacturing and then back to the hotel, we are pretty tired. 

Tomorrow we will go to Navy Pier and probably do some shopping in Michigan ave.