Secret Chicago: The Unique Guidebook to Chicago's Hidden Sites, Sounds, and Tastes

Book Description
New visitors and longtime residents alike will find unique locales in this guide to the Second City's hidden treasures. Far beyond the predictable tourist routes, these listings reveal the arcane, cool, and hush-hush hotspots of Chicago. From white sand beaches that include urban skylines and smoky jazz clubs where it's always midnight to piercing palaces and tasty taquerias, Chicago's diverse destinations are described in detail for travelers willing to step off the beaten path.


From the Publisher
"Armed with a sharp wit and healthy sense of the absurd, Sam Weller explores the exciting, exotic, and esoteric Chicago that few natives know. Follow him." Mark Lukas, Chicago Tribune Writer Nelson Algren once said Chicago was like a beautiful woman with a broken nose. Other travel guides don't tell you about that broken nose. This one does. Why? Because in order to truly understand Chicago - to experience it and love it like you've lived in it forever - you have to appreciate all its sides. You can't just visit the Art Institute of Chicago, or shop at the glitzy Water Tower Place mall, and expect to walk away with a feel for the city. Secret Chicago warns you away from the realm of the tourist and directs you instead to the leafy neighbourhoods and the tiny "ma and pa" stores. It leads you to a dark and smoky blues club where the daughter of a blues legend wails well past the witching hour - singing to a small crowd of neighborhood regulars. It invites you to a Polish deli on the far Southwest side to sample garlic kielbasa, and afterward to wander to a nearby all-night bowling alley with 80 lanes. It opens the door to a vegetarian restaurant where you can sit out on a screened-in porch as the nearby elevated train rumbles by overhead. It takes you to the best place for punk rock, and to the place the punk rockers get their tattoos. Secret Chicago will also save you money with a naughty tip on how to cheat the tollbooths on the local expressways, and with clear-cut advice on how the city's train system operates. It will direct you to one of the most expensive hotel suites in town, but also show you how to lodge comfortably for a whole week for little more than $100. It takes a local to know these things, and with this book you'll have local Sam Weller as your guide. You can leaf through this book, choose a topic ("Secret Jazz, or Secret Ethnic Bakeries, for example), and explore. Before long, you'll be a local too.


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Secret Chicago will also save you money with a naughty tip on how to cheat the tollbooths on the local expressways, and with clear-cut advice on how the city's train system operates. It will direct you to one of the most expensive hotel suites in town, but also show you how to lodge comfortably for a whole week for little more than $100. It takes a local to know these things, and with this book you'll have local Sam Weller as your guide. You can leaf through this book, choose a topic ("Secret Jazz, or Secret Ethnic Bakeries, for example), and explore. Before long, you'll be a local too.


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