We’re right smack dab in the middle of Sonoran Restaurant Week, when around 100 (!) restaurants in Tucson and surrounding cities offer special prix fixe menus for $25, $35, or $45 (plus tax and tip). The price often includes several courses that would regularly cost more.
The idea is to encourage diners to try restaurants they haven’t been to, as well as revisiting old favorites. You many need to ask for the Sonoran Restaurant Week menu if you’re at a participating place and don’t see one. Find participating restaurants and menus on TucsonFoodie.com.
View of the city from inside the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson.
This post came from finding ways to squeeze in a little Chicago sightseeing when I was headed to a conference that would be split between the massive McCormick Place convention center and hotels a few miles away, along the Chicago River.
Now that I’m getting ready for another quick trip to Chicago, I’ve updated information and added to it.
Let me know what you like to do in the Windy City!
–Steph
I had been to Chicago O’Hare. But the airport doesn’t count. I had driven by Chicago on the interstate. That doesn’t really count either. The first time I was really in the city of Chicago, it was for a conference. Which just barely counts.
Part of the massive McCormick Place convention center in Chicago.
A conference can be like its own self-contained universe. You can eat, sleep, socialize, work, learn, and be entertained for days without ever leaving its confines. Or ever talking to someone who isn’t wearing a lanyard. Whether you’re there for knowledge or networking, you want to get as much as you can out of the conference itself. But it’s also nice to see some of the area outside the convention center.
As I prepared for the 2013 BlogHer Annual Conference, I also looked into what was near the downtown convention centers and hotels where I would be starting from and how I could see a small slice of Chicago if I found a spare hour or two. Continue reading “Chicago Sightseeing on a Conference Schedule”
We were in Italy a year ago, and I’ve been thinking about the trip and the stories I still want to tell.
The Lion
I recently posted a photo of the bronze winged lion that towers above Venice’s main square, Piazza San Marco.
Because the mythical creature is the symbol of St. Mark/San Marco, who is the patron saint of Venice, it has come to also represent the city itself. (And you can spot winged lions all over the place!)
While I’ve never spent more than a few days at a time in San Diego, it’s been part of some very memorable trips.
We camped at a State Park just outside of town on the final night of our trip down the coast in 2012.
Back when Phillip worked for an airline, we flew in just for an afternoon once, because we could go for free.
Another time, we took the San Diego Trolley south to the end of the line. Did you know it goes all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border? We crossed over to visit friends in Tijuana.
Fast forward to this year. When Phillip and I decided we’d join my brother, sister-in-law, their kids, and my parents on their San Diego trip in July, I started thinking about previous trips and what I’d want to see and do again. Continue reading “San Diego Sights Worth a Second Trip”
I first encountered the word funicular on a hillside in Sedona. Known as the “Hillevator” (hill + elevator), the small railway gave tourists a shortcut between Uptown Sedona and L’Auberge Resort and Oak Creek at the bottom of the hill.
While I’m a bit fuzzy on the exact definition (I think it involves cables and pulleys), a funicular is basically a passenger vehicle that goes up and down a hill on a track.
By nature, they’re very localized and customized to the spot they’re in. Maybe that’s why I find them intriguing.
While Sedona’s Hillevator is now out of commission, another quirky old funicular has recently come back to life. After its brief appearance in the movie La La Land, the push to restore the Angels Flight Railway in Downtown Los Angeles may have gained steam, and it reopened in August of 2017.
At the bottom: Jalan Bukit Bendera base station near George Town.
At the top: former British hill station Penang Hill. The resort town’s attractions include the three-storey Astaka Cliff Cafe, which houses food courts, souvenir stands, an owl museum, and Love Lock Penang Hill.
One of six different modes of sightseeing transportation in the alpine Grimsel Pass. Depending on the season and your level of adventurousness, you can also take a gondola lift, train, or the not-so-steep Reichenbach Funicular (replica of an 1899 wagon. Round trip: CHF 12).
At the bottom: Suspension bridge over the Handeck gorge and waterfall
From a print of a photo I took in the early 2000s. Our friend Ozan was joking around with his hands on the window. (He’s not trapped in there or anything.)
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