Millennium Park & Cloud Gate (The Bean)

Cloud Gate, Millennium Park

A giant silver bean with the whole skyline bent across it

Hours

Daily 6am-11pm (City of Chicago DCASE)

Tickets

Free

Address

201 E Randolph St, in the Loop; the Bean sits in the middle of AT&T Plaza

Walk into the plaza and a 10-metre blob of polished steel is throwing Michigan Avenue's towers back at you like a funhouse mirror. The plates are welded so smoothly you can't find a seam; put your palm on it and it's cold, then step under the hollow belly and your face splits into dozens of copies. A few steps south, two glass towers stare at each other with giant faces on their screens (Crown Fountain), and in warm weather kids splash in the shallow water between them. East of the Bean you get the crumpled steel ribbons of the Pritzker Pavilion and the snaking BP Bridge. It's all free, which makes it the obvious first afternoon in Chicago.