In the city
The first thing we noticed upon checking into our hotel was that Christmas has arrived. Already. The foyer is populated with pink-clothed nutcrackers and collections of pink and navy blue baubles in birdcages.
But waking early this morning, the pink nutcrackers were not enough of a diversion to distract us from our focus. As always, travelling west means waking up feeling hungry and thankfully, our favourite Tempo has survived the pandemic. Breakfast was calling, blueberry waffle for me and corned beef hash for you know who.
Delicious. The perfect start to the day!
Setting off down Chestnut Street an hour or so later with the intention of spending a few hours along Michigan Avenue, we noticed a team working in the cold sleety rain, refreshing the flower beds along the street.
They were planting a huge number of bulbs in those beds in a density sure to create a spectacular show next Spring.
We turned right onto the Avenue, feeling warm enough right now but noting how the weather might prove a problem if it turned worse during the day. The forecast had not been so bad and this sleet was not part of our plan!
Here too were teams of men creating seasonal displays in the flower beds along the Avenue. It appeared that the owners/tenants of the store front adjacent to the flower bed determined what was planted there. The gardeners were removing bicycle themed arrangements in Autumnal colours and seemed to be replacing those with Christmas themed greenery.
In each section, at least one arrangement was complete and the gardeners seemed to be creating multiple copies of that. Had it been created by a floral artist/designer? We didn’t know, but in at least one area a young woman stood, appearing to be overseeing proceedings.
Some areas were already finished, others had some way to go. We assume that the deadline would be this Friday, where the lights are switched on and there will be a large parade along here.
By the time we reached the river and the De Sable Bridge, the sleet was nasty; wet and cold. We stood a while trying to ignore it, doing our best to savour our favourite view and thinking that those people braving the weather and joining a riverboad trip must be crazy!
This is a great collection of buildings though: the tall clock tower is part of the Wrigley building and across the road, the other large tower is the Chicago Tribune .
We thought we’d earned a treat, so stopped in Ghirardelli’s for a while for hot chocolate with a view.
Crossing the road to return along the opposite side, we saw other, similar Christmas arrangements in planters along the way. Beautiful though they were, they did all appear to be very similar variations on a theme. Perhaps that was planned?
Feeling wet, the promise of a warm haven in Sephora came at a timely moment, so whilst one of us browsed and played with some new makeup products, the other found a corner to sit with a book. Happy times.
When we eventually moved on, we noted the mannequin in the window of the Nike shop, thinking how unusual it is to see a “real woman” in a shop window like that..It caught our attention anyway, enough for me to take a picture, too.
The gardeners had been hard at work all the way along here, creating similar arrangements with greenery, fir cones and some twigs. I wonder how many similar designs they create?
Just when we were thinking they were all starting to look the same, there was something different!
We were certainly flagging by now though, so were happy to turn into Water Tower Place, a familiar shopping mall where we knew there were a couple of shops where we might spend some time browsing. One of those was the Lego shop, and this fabulous (not so) little figure at the foot of the escalator was drawing quite a lot of attention. So cute, isn’t he?
After a couple of hours spent in favourite shopping haunts, we were ready to return up Chestnut Street to our hotel. The gardeners were well and truly finished along here and those beds of flower bulbs had all been cleaned up and covered with a layer of greenery. I wonder how long before it begins to look tired?
Speaking of my feet…..
