Wednesday 25th May 2022 We had originally hoped to start the day by going up the Willis Tower but the weather had different plans. The forecast did not indicate much improvement for tomorrow so we will need to save this for a return visit. As Chicago is a major railway intersection, and Robert is planning more transcontinental train trips here we will hopefully return. Instead we decided to see the city from lower down and booked an Architecture Boat Tour along the Chicago River. Our tour guide said that he had found the perfect job as he never stopped talking. He was certainly very knowledgeable and the tour proved to be most informative. Here is just a small selection of the things we learned, not all of which have accompanying photographs. The white glazed terracotta tiles on the Wrigley Building, which we admired on our first fleeting visit to Chicago, are fire resistant but will not stand up to power washing so have to be hand cleaned by people suspended from the building. The curvaceous Marina Towers complex [seen in the video below right] was built in 1968 at a time when not many people lived by the river so the […]
Daily Archives: 27/05/2022
Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th May 2022 Our hotel is opposite the famous Peabody Hotel which opened there in 1925. Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy had lived in the original 1869 building. By far the most famous residents now are the Peabody Ducks who march through the lobby daily at 11:00 to swim in the fountain – more of them later. We walked across the road to see if there were any restrictions on the number of people who could come to see the waddling procession and Matilda was pleased to find out that all are welcome. As an added bonus the ducks were still swimming in the fountain as they remain there until 17:00. We planned to return for the 11:00 duck parade the next day. We then set off to see some of the sights of Memphis, one of the most famous of which is Beale Street [see Selfie of the day] which is known as the Home of the Blues. Metal quavers on the pavement here celebrate famous musicians and Matilda obviously chose this one to photograph. Robert would have you believe that he took this photo to show the typical style of architecture […]
Monday 23rd May 2022 We had originally planned to make our own way to Graceland when we docked but the house is about nine miles south of the centre of Memphis and so we felt it was too far to walk there and back. By booking on the disembarkation tour from the American Queen we found we could have our luggage delivered to the hotel opposite ours and get transport out to Graceland and back. The other advantage was that people on the tour from the boat were to be allowed into Graceland earlier than the general public. Unfortunately, there had been some confusion over the number of guides needed for coaches and our driver spent sometime trying to sort this out. We did manage to bypass the introductory video and eventually, although we were not let in early, we were some of the very first visitors of the day. The social distancing notices were obviously specially commissioned. The address of the property is 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard also known as Route 51. Visitors are given a pair of headphones and an iPad so that they can listen to the commentary at their own pace. A minibus takes visitors from the […]