Despite the other hundreds of people occupying rooms, hotels can be just like home if one is willing to use their imagination. To avoid the drone of other people and their noises I recommend renting a house or an apartment when visiting somewhere for an extended time. On a recent trip my parents, wife, children and I took to Chicago we rented an apartment at the Andersonville Guesthouse.
Each apartment comes with an assigned garage bay and ours also had a ground floor patio.
Our kitchen and dinning area were more than adequate.
The two bedrooms and two baths were very nice as well.
Location, location, location. We were half a block from a bus stop, half a block from a lovely restaurant, and had very quite neighbors in a cemetery across the street. Walking several blocks north gained us access to more restaurants, cool local shops, and a Starbucks.
Ann Sather's served an excellent breakfast and was very hospitable. Their cinnamon rolls caused us to take an extra trip around the block though. We enjoyed Homemade Pizza Co., a great take and bake place, too. However, our favorite restaurant was Reza's for their family style dinner that satisfied everyone in our group.
Amy and I explored several of the shops on North Clark Street one afternoon while everyone else napped. Sifu was a design studio and yarn store where we snagged some cool yarn for our Aunt Zadie. Continuing up the street we found two awesome, vintage yellow chairs at Urban Mischief. We didn't purchase the chairs, but had a blast trying on all her fedora hats.
We found our favorite shop of the afternoon, Four Sided, on the corner of North Clark and Carmen. This frame shop and art boutique was full of typefaces in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Old maps, letters, buttons, typewriter keys, letters, stickers, prints, and more letters. This store was very aged and eclectic, yet very streamlined and modern at the same time.
The neighborhood Starbucks served us well on several occasions.
Each evening while walking back to the apartment we stopped at a hip grocery store, Urban Orchard, for a couple items. On these nightly excursions we would talk books, blogs, and travel with an employee, Jeremy Glickstein. You can learn more about my new friend Jeremy and his other works at Total Man Design.
Wednesday evenings, during the summer, Andersonville host their farmers market on Berwyn Street. We arrived as most vendors were packing up, but Amy was able to grab some Argentina style sweets called alfjores from Lucila Giagrande.
These local pleasures would have been unknown to us had we stayed at the Ramada Lakeshore Chicago.
Our overall experience of Andersonville Guesthouse and the surrounding neighborhood was excellent.
Five stars!
Five stars!
