Explore Chicago

The Medieval Torture Museum is a private museum on State Street in the Loop, housed in the Page Brothers Building of 1872. In about 6,000 square feet of dimly lit rooms it shows more than 100 torture and punishment devices from medieval and early modern Europe, with interactive displays explaining how they were used.

The Art Institute of Chicago is an art museum in Grant Park, founded in 1879; its Beaux-Arts building, guarded by two bronze lions, opened on Michigan Avenue in 1893. Renzo Piano's Modern Wing was added in 2009. The collection spans five millennia and includes Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Wood's American Gothic and Hopper's Nighthawks.

Millennium Park is a park in the Loop, in the north-west corner of Grant Park, opened in 2004 on top of former rail yards and parking garages. It contains the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, an open-air concert stage designed by Frank Gehry, the BP Bridge, the Lurie Garden, the Crown Fountain and Anish Kapoor's sculpture Cloud Gate.

Willis Tower is a 110-storey skyscraper in the Chicago Loop, completed in 1973 as the Sears Tower to a design by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Its observation deck, Skydeck Chicago, is on the 103rd floor, some 412 metres up. Glass boxes called The Ledge project from the facade, so visitors can stand above the street below.

The Chicago Riverwalk is a public promenade about 2 km long on the south bank of the main branch of the Chicago River, running from Lake Street to Lake Michigan. Built in stages from 2001, it passes under the downtown bridges and has terraces, a Vietnam veterans memorial plaza, cafés, boat landings and kayak rental.

Navy Pier is a pier about a kilometre long on Lake Michigan, opened in 1916 as Chicago's Municipal Pier and renamed in 1927 to honour Navy veterans of the First World War. It holds shops, restaurants, a theatre, a children's museum and boat departures. The Centennial Wheel, opened in 2016, carries enclosed gondolas almost 60 metres high.