New Tours & New Years

26 Dec New Tours & New Years

We kept it pretty low-key, but November was Chicago Weekend Explorers’ one year anniversary! As much fun as it has been, we are expecting to really ramp things up in the coming year. We are adding Hyde Park, South Shore, The West Loop and Pilsen to our “Chicago Comprehensive” series. See Chicago in ways you never expected and get a glimpse of the absolute best Chicago’s neighborhoods have to offer. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter and check our calendar for tour dates!

In addition, we are rolling out a few Spanish language tours, including our maiden  Spanish language tour on January 25th. Participants will be able to get an in-depth visit to the Chicago Cultural Center, a behind the scenes tour at Chicago’s hottest new brewery, Casa Humilde Cervecería, and see the B Line! The B Line is Chicago’s answer to Miami’s Wynwood, a fantastic outdoor gallery of funky and creative murals.

This is the final weekend of the year, in fact the decade… so you might want to wrap it up in style! The Promontory, hard to pronounce but easy to love in every other way, brings some swag to Hyde Park on NYE with a $60 per person fixed price 4 course meal. Closer to the Loop (the South Loop, that is) is Umai. My ace team of researchers tell me that they have absolutely nothing special going on for New Years Eve, so why am I mentioning it as a NYE destination? Well, the food is superb, for one. Avoid the sushi… you can get good sushi at any number of places in Chicago. Try the grilled dishes and the appetizers, they are almost like tapas. Plus! The staff is cool, and chill, and you can have a late dinner there and then walk less than 10 minutes to the lakefront. Not the overcrowded lakefront of North Avenue or Melrose Beach. You can get into that little nook of lakefront just south north of the museum campus and enjoy the unseasonably mild weather while watching the fireworks over Navy Pier.

You still gotta get through this weekend to even sniff NYE though. So what’s up this weekend? Well, since you won’t be able to get much sleep on NYE, have a chill weekend. Start out with a trip to the Garfield Park Conservatory, always beautiful to see this time of year. Even though it’s been a pretty warm winter, nothing beats the tropics! Speaking of the tropics, Bolivar and Lincoln has delicious Venezuelan style empanadas… grab a few to take home, you know you don’t feel like cooking! Don’t heat them up in the microwave though… nothing is worse than a soggy empanada. Oh, and for some seriously balanced hot chocolate, you might want to head to Katherine Anne’s Confections. Why do I call it balanced? Well, it’s not thin and cheap, and it’s not overpriced or all gloppy. There are some acclaimed chocolatiers in Chicago who serve “drinking chocolate” that you could cut with a knife.

Thanks to Anna for sharing some photos of the B Line – it really is vivid. Enjoy your weekend, and see you in 2o20!