Magnificent Mile - North Michigan Avenue
- John Hancock Center, Water Tower, Water Tower Place, 900 North Michigan Shops

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Magnificent Mile is the part of Michigan Avenue to the North of the Loop. Here you find some of the most exclusive department stores, malls, restaurants, highrise residential buildings, skyscrapers and tall hotels. Magnificent Mile, also called The Mag Mile, is considered the foremost shopping street of Chicago. Branches of department stores Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Neiman-Marcus can all be found on Magnificent Mile (N Michigan Ave), as well as designer stores like Gucci, Carter, Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Amani and Louis Vutton. The Chicago Water Tower and the Pumping Station opposite it were the only structures that survived the great fire in 18, since they were built in stone. It is beautiful and considered a main tourist attraction. Inside the water tower there is a small art gallery.Opposite the Water Tower is Water Tower Place, one of several mixed use complexes at Magnificent Mile, a 10-story shopping mall with apartments and a 74-storey modernist skyscraper with a luxury hotel, Ritz-Carlton, on the top. It was built in 1976. We tried a good restaurant on the 10th floor, and visited the sports museum. 900 North Michigan Shops is even more exclusive, anchored by Bloomingdale's and also has a skyscraper (a postmodern with 66 floors) with a luxury Four Seasons hotel on the top. All three of Chicago's 5 star hotels are situated on Magnificent Mile. Chicago Place, anchored by Saks, and The Shops at Northbridge, anchored by Nordstrom, are other shopping gallerias.

John Hancock Center, today Chicago's 4th tallest skyscraper (344m, 2nd tallest if you count the mast, 457m), was built in 1969 and is the most prominent landmark of Magnificent Mile, with 100 floors. It was Chicago's tallest building upon completion, and the world's second tallest, for 5 years. It is black just like Sears Tower that beated the building in height in 1974, but features huge black X:es on the exterior, unlike Sears, narrows a bit to the top. Afterall it was designed by the same archicture firm, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. As a city within the city, with apartments, stores andrestaurants (one on the 95th floor), it has been model for many following skyscraper complexes.On top there is a nice observation deck with shorter queues than Sears Tower, called 360 Chicago. There is a tilt that can be visited for the brave ones. The skyscraper also boasts the world's first sky lobby, America's highest swimming pool and the 3rd highest residence in the world. The building is named after the former insurance company John Hancock Financial. We visited John Hancock Center the last evening in Chicago. It was a rush since it was about to close, but we arrived late to be able to see the beautiful night lights of Windy City.

Fourth Presbyterian Church is a gothic revival church from 1912, situated opposite John Hancock Center, next to the Water Tower. Palmolive Building is a 1929 art deco skyscraper wit a beacon on top. It looks a bit like a smaller version of Empire State Building.

If you approach Magnificent Mile from the North, the first thing you will see is probably the Drake Hotel, a classic Chicago hotel from 1920, where many royalties and celebrities have stayed, and many famous movies have been shot here. At the south end you will find the historic skyscrapers from the 1920s; Wrigley Building (a gothic classic from 1924 inspired by the Giralda Tower in Sevilla), Tribune Tower (a neo-gothic skyscraper that is the headquarters of Chicago Tribune, the winning design from a famous 1922 architects competition of building the world's most beautiful tower, inspired by a French gothic cathedral and features elements from famous buildings around the world like Colosseum, WTC, the pyramids of Egypt and the moon) and Hotel Intercontinental, built in 1929 as Medina Athletic Club, but is now a 42 floors tall de luxe hotel with an extraordinary interior that looks like a Spanish castle.

The classic Allerton Hotel, the large and luxorious Peninsula Hotel (built 2001) and the postmodern Omni Hotel (formerly Hotel 21 East) can aslo be found on Magnificent Mile. Here is also Trump International Hotel and Tower, the 98-storey mixed use skyscraper that since 2009 is Chicago's second tallest building. It has a height of 423 m to the spire, and was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (the same firm that designed Sears Tower, Burj Khalifa and John Hancock).

Last night we spent at the Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant with a fantasy interior, and a plaza with a waterfall that is underneath street level, just below John Hancock Center. Grand Lux Café is a huge café on Magnificent Mile, managed by the same company.

Magnificent Mile (N Michigan Ave) ends at the Chicago River, where it changes name to S Michigan Ave, that also features many landmarks.