Chicago

Chicago has a real summer beach life, which surprises many visitors. More than twenty sandy beaches line Lake Michigan inside the city, from Oak Street Beach right beside the skyscrapers of the Gold Coast to the long volleyball strand at North Avenue and the quieter stretches at Montrose and 63rd Street. The water is fresh, clear on calm days and usually around 21°C at its warmest in August, though a change of wind can chill it sharply overnight.

The season is short. Swimming is realistic from late June to early September, and for the rest of the year the beaches are for walking. In summer they suit a free afternoon between sights; they are not why people book the trip.

Chicago eats seriously and at every level. It has its own working-class canon: deep-dish and thin tavern-cut pizza, Italian beef sandwiches dripping with jus, and the Chicago hot dog dressed with everything except ketchup. Above that sits one of the strongest fine-dining scenes in the country, with tasting-menu kitchens and the restaurant row along Randolph Street in the West Loop.

The depth is in the neighbourhoods. Pilsen and Little Village serve Mexican cooking as good as anywhere outside Mexico, Devon Avenue has South Asian food, Chinatown and Argyle Street cover Chinese and Vietnamese, and there are Polish, Greek and Korean pockets across the city. Craft breweries, old corner taverns and a strong coffee scene fill in the rest.

Chicago is one of the great architecture cities of the world, the place where the skyscraper grew up after the Great Fire of 1871. The Loop holds early steel-frame towers, the Rookery's light court and later glass landmarks by Mies van der Rohe, and the river cruise past them is the classic way to see them. Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House is in Hyde Park, with his early Prairie houses in Oak Park.

The museums match it. The Art Institute has one of the finest collections in the Americas, with a celebrated Impressionist wing, and the lakefront Museum Campus groups the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. Millennium Park's sculpture and the Cloud Gate mirror bean round it off. What it lacks is any heritage older than the 19th century.

Chicago is a late city by American standards. Many bars hold late licences that keep them pouring until 4am, a little longer at weekends, so a night out does not end at midnight. Going out happens neighbourhood by neighbourhood: cocktail bars and dive bars in Wicker Park, Logan Square and the West Loop, lounges and dance clubs in River North, a loud sports-bar crowd around Wrigley Field, and the city's main gay district in Northalsted.

The club scene leans on the city's own history as a birthplace of house music, and dance nights still carry that tradition. In summer, rooftops and beer gardens fill up; in deep winter, the night moves indoors to warm old taverns.

The lake is Chicago's landscape. A continuous path runs about 29km along the shore, past parks, harbours and the skyline, and it is the best way to spend an outdoor day in the city, on foot, by bike or on skates. Lincoln Park and Jackson Park add lagoons, gardens and birding along a major migration route, and kayaking on the Chicago River gives a different angle on the towers.

Beyond the city the land is flat. The dunes, marshes and woodland trails of Indiana Dunes National Park are about an hour away, and the sandstone canyons of Starved Rock about an hour and a half. There are no hills, and winters are long and cold.

Chicago sits in the middle of the Midwest prairie, and most worthwhile outings need some effort. The easiest is Milwaukee, about an hour and a half by train, with its lakefront art museum, breweries and old German-built neighbourhoods. Oak Park, on the edge of the city, rewards architecture lovers with a street of Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

By car, Lake Geneva in Wisconsin has lakeside mansions and a shore path, and the small harbour towns of southwest Michigan offer beaches, orchards and wineries. Galena and Springfield are too far for a comfortable day. The list is pleasant rather than compelling.

Chicago is a strong choice with children. The Museum of Science and Industry, with its coal mine and U-boat, can fill a whole day, and the lakefront Museum Campus puts dinosaurs at the Field Museum, beluga whales and dolphins at the Shedd Aquarium and the planetarium next to one another. Lincoln Park Zoo is free and set in a large park by the lake, and Brookfield Zoo lies in the western suburbs.

Navy Pier has a Ferris wheel and a children's museum, Maggie Daley Park has climbing walls and a winter skating ribbon, and the summer beaches are lifeguarded. Winter is bitterly cold and the city is large, so plan around the weather.

Visitors to Chicago do not need a car. The elevated trains, known as the L, run from both airports into the Loop, where the tracks circle the downtown blocks, and the centre is flat, gridded and easy to walk. Millennium Park, the Art Institute, the Museum Campus and the riverfront are all within walking distance of one another.

The limits come with size. The L is shaped like spokes into downtown, so travelling between neighbourhoods often means a bus along one of the long straight avenues. Distances are long, and the wind and cold of January make walking a chore. Water taxis on the river and bike-share along the lakefront help in summer.

The Magnificent Mile, the stretch of Michigan Avenue north of the river, is the city's showcase: big flagships, vertical malls and department stores. Luxury labels gather on Oak Street around the corner. On State Street, the old Marshall Field's building is still a department store under its Tiffany mosaic ceiling, and it remains a place to visit as much as to shop.

For something less familiar, Wicker Park and Bucktown have independent fashion and record shops, Andersonville has design and vintage stores, and Logan Square has small makers. There is little in the way of markets or local crafts, so shopping here is mostly about American brands and good boutiques.

Chicago is expensive, though less so than the biggest American coastal cities. Downtown hotels cost a lot, especially in summer and during big conventions, and high hotel and sales taxes on top of tipping push bills up further. Eating out at sit-down restaurants is costly too.

There is relief. Neighbourhood taquerias, hot dog stands and pizza places are cheap, the L is good value, and the lakefront, the beaches, Millennium Park and Lincoln Park Zoo are free. Staying outside the Loop and visiting outside summer both make a real difference.

Live performance is one of the best reasons to visit Chicago. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the finest in the world, plays at Symphony Center on Michigan Avenue, and the Lyric Opera stages a full season in its riverside opera house. The theatre scene is among the deepest in the country, from the Goodman and Steppenwolf to dozens of small storefront companies, with touring musicals in the grand old Loop theatres. Second City has trained generations of comedians, and improv runs nightly.

The city's own music runs through it all. Chicago electric blues still plays in clubs on the North and South Sides, jazz rooms keep late sets, and summer brings free concerts at Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavilion and the long-running blues and jazz festivals.

Chicago is not a place people come to unwind, but it has more bathing than you might expect. An old Russian-and-Turkish bathhouse in Wicker Park, open since the early 1900s, still runs scorching steam rooms and cold plunges, and a large Korean-style jjimjilbang in the northern suburbs offers heated rooms and pools. Downtown, the big hotels have the usual spas.

The calmer side of a stay is the lakefront: early walks along the shore, the Lincoln Park Conservatory's warm glasshouses in winter, and the Garfield Park Conservatory on the West Side. Otherwise the pace is that of a big, busy city.