Millennium Park: Beyond the Bean Walking Tour by the Chicago Architecture Foundation

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Duration: 2h
Location: Millennium Park, Chicago, IL United States | Chicago, United States


Category: Tours & Sightseeing

Highlights:
All-encompassing tour of Millennium Parks’ stunning features
Experienced guide offers insight into park’s construction
Stainless steel-plated & Frank Gehry-designed BP Bridge
Beautiful flowers, native trees & grasses of Lurie Garden
Intriguing Cloud Gate sculpture nicknamed the Bean

Inclusions:
Guided tour of Millennium Park
Live tour commentary provided in English

Description:

Stroll the grounds of Millennium Park to explore marvelous sculptures, sprawling gardens, and wide-open fields beneath geometric trellises. Originally designed to commemorate the new millennium, and highly criticized at the time, this park has become the crown jewel of Chicago’s urban landscape.

Meet your experienced guide and dive into the stunning features of this remarkable green space. Explore the park’s eccentric art installations with stops at the Crown Fountain—part multimedia exhibit, part interactive water feature—and the Cloud Gate—where you can admire your distorted reflection in the sculpture locals refer to as the Bean.

Wander over the expansive lawns of Jay Pritzker Pavilions and marvel at the crisscrossing structure overhead, which casts unique shadows on the grass and serves to support lights and speakers for the big-name acts and world-class orchestras that frequent the nearby stage.

For a lofted view, wind to the top of the Frank Gehry-designed BP Bridge, whose stainless steel-plated sides act as a sound barrier to the bustling streets below. Take in views from the bridge and listen to your guide share information about the transit station and parking lot that lie beneath the park, effectively making it the largest rooftop garden in the world.

Wrap up your excursion among the gorgeous flowers, trees, and grasses that fill the 2.5-acre (1-ha) Lurie Garden, snapping a few last-minute souvenir photos with the Windy City’s dramatic skyline as the ideal backdrop.