A Delightful Day in Chicago: Lincoln Zoo, Route 66, and Giordano's Pizza

Morning Adventures at Lincoln Zoo

Bit of a blunder this morning as we took a walk to Lou Mitchell’s diner. This is a famous place that people go to for breakfast before starting Route 66. Was about a 30 minute walk but hey, would be worth it right. Wrong, blooming diner closed for Labour Day. That scuppered our plans.

Instead we took a local bus across the city to Lincoln Park Zoo for a wander around. Lovely vibes and free entry. It was nice to spend some time just lazing around reading the the gardens there. In the way up we we went past the beach, it looked a great place to hang out and if we were here longer woukd go there for the afternoon. Suntans and bikini body on display will have to wait.

Historically Scenic: The Start of Route 66

After our enchanting morning at the zoo, we headed over to the start of the historic Route 66 trail. This iconic route, often referred to as the 'Main Street of America,' stretches all the way to California. Standing at the starting point felt like we finally made it to the start of our journey. A long time dream and something we have planned for the last 9 months. It’s a real now.

Culinary Surprise at Giordano's Pizza

No trip to Chicago would be complete without tasting the local culinary delight deep dish pizza we went for—Giordano's Pizza for our tea (that’s dinner to you non Yorkshire people) As had seen great reviews and heard good comments. A good first sign was that the place was packed. When we ordered we saw the smallest deep dish they do is 10 inch which they say is for 2 to 3 people. So we shared and went for the super veggie (unlucky for Matthew). The pizza was nice but seemed slightly unusual as the cheese and toppings were beneath the tomato sauce. We enjoyed it but I don’t think either of us was completely convinced by our first try of this style of pizza.

In summary, our time in Chicago has been truly delightful. Having good weather certainly helped. We had planned to do a lot more such as galleries etc but we just didn’t need to. Having 4 full days meant we could take out time, wander around, sit and relax in the hot weather etc. would we come back? Absolutely we would. The city feels spacious, safe and has lots to see and do. As mentioned we felt still plenty to have done with the beach, water taxi to Chinatown, the various art galleries and of course the S**t Fountain.

Thank you to everyone following our journey. We are still new to this blogging malarkey and learning how to update the site etc. We haven’t worked out how to do multiple pictures on the blog so we thought we'd post pictures on Facebook for people to see or unfollow if we post too many. Then we are writing more details of what we get up to on this blog. This is the link to the Facebook group to join:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/1166678437916279/?ref=share

Feel free to follow both.