Where to stay: The Loews Chicago Downtown has comfy, business-ready rooms with desks overlooking the hotel’s green roofs, and a bustling rooftop bar, Streeterville Social. How to get there: Airlines including Air Canada, Porter Airlines and Swoop operate non-stop flights (under two hours) from Toronto to Chicago. Writer Caitlin Stall-Paquet travelled as a guest of Choose Chicago, which did not review or approve this article. I’m surrounded by people ready with picnics and camping chairs, regulars seasoned in the art of enjoying their green oasis in the heart of town. While the highways may be rushing all around me, all I hear is the blaring of the Chicago Blues Festival at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. The grassy expanse of Millennium Park calls me to lie down and rest my bones, tired from all the walking, pedalling, paddling and climbing. I take a breath before jumping off, feeling my harness catch me. Turning around, I catch the skyline - stunning even from here, with highrises framing the greenery. I cling to the wall, averting my eyes from the ground, and make it about halfway up before my body refuses to keep going. Heart melting, I look around, realizing I’m the only person past puberty doing this, as parents sit on benches encouraging their kids. Once I’m harnessed in, a red-headed boy of no more than five years old who’s heard my anxiety tells me, “You’re going to do awesome,” before quickly scaling up the wall. There, I find a rock-climbing wall where the supportive staff tries to ease my fear of heights, assuring me the view from the top is worth it. To get one final new outlook, I make my way to Maggie Daley Park on my last day in town. It isn’t a pristine, smooth structure: I can see the steel rebar intentionally left as a reminder of its history. Before heading our separate ways, Paige leads me off the path to see its underbelly. In the heat of summer, these will get picked and donated to a nearby ice cream shop for a hyperlocal dessert. Paige draws my attention to the serviceberry trees, which bear a deep purple fruit. Walking along the verdant path, I notice how the plants alongside were introduced with purpose but allowed to grow a bit wild, with intermingling low-maintenance tall grasses and seasonal blooms. A docent with the Chicago Architecture Center, the retired urban planner is happy to inform me that it’s the longest such repurposed green space in the country: “Even longer than New York’s High Line,” he adds with an edge of friendly competition. I see another example of nature’s return the following afternoon, when I meet John Paige at the trailhead of the 606 (or Bloomingdale Trail), a nearly 4.5-kilometre pedestrian and bike path built on a former train track, which opened to the public in 2015. The downtown’s Chicago Riverwalk, built in 2001, is home to Urban Kayaks, where my guide, Joe, takes me on a tour of the storied river, pointing out historic buildings as we glide along. Later that afternoon, I decide to take a cue from the water fowl and do some paddling of my own, to see some of the city’s most famous buildings from a fresh point of view: from the water, aboard a bright green kayak. Before emerging from the path thick with flora, I’m excited to spot a pair of multicoloured wood ducks swimming in the protected marshy waters of this contained oasis. The nearby Highway 41 fades into the background, sharing the soundscape with flocks of robins, sparrows and ducks there to pair up while passing through. I keep my eyes peeled for its transitory visitors, like black-crowned night herons. As I walk into the shady enclave, a sense of calm immediately settles in. May and June are mating time for plenty of species passing through, so the eight-acre, fenced-off protected land is abuzz with birds.
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