I admit it. I love to visit Chicago. In fact, I’m going back this weekend for what will likely be the seventh or eighth (or ninth, who’s counting?) time this year. It's our annual holiday visit.
I love the food (MingHin dim sum and Do-Rite donuts, here we come!), I love the art museums and, if you read what I write here at OnMilwaukee, you KNOW I dig the architecture.
We’re regulars at the Shedd, which I visited with my kid again just this autumn, and we rarely fail to stop and gaze at our distorted tourist selves in the Cloud Gate sculpture (aka the Bean) in Millennium Park.
And, you know, I also enjoy the comforting feeling of seeing the Milwaukee skyline rise up as I reach the south end of the high-rise bridge on the way back home.
Turns out, I’m much like Huffington Post U.K. fashion, food and travel blogger and writer Roxii Hoare-Smith.
Hoare-Smith penned a list of 10 reasons to visit the Windy City yesterday and we agree on the food, the art, the architecture, the Bean, the views from the Skydeck at the Willis Tower (you’ll always be Sears to me, friend) and Hancock, the Shedd ...
... and Milwaukee.
Yes, you can eat at the top of the Hancock.
Yes, fully 10 percent of the reason to visit Chicago, according to Hoare-Smith, is Milwaukee.
"Just a two-hour drive, train or bus ride away is Milwaukee, Wisconsin," she writes. "Squeeze in time for a day trip – especially you are a beer or cheese lover – and tick off another state."
She shouts out brewery tours, the Milwaukee Public Market, Best Place, the Safe House.
While I might quibble with the standings – surely Milwaukee should rank higher than "The suburbs" – I think Hoare-Smith has a pretty solid list.
You can read it in its entirety here.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
