‘Sex & the City 2′ Suites at Chicago Four Seasons

Bring on the new “Glamour Girl” cosmos—“Sex and the City 2” is model-stomping into theaters and the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago has its “Suites and the Second City Package” ready—for girlfriends or couples.

Rates start at $625 per night for an executive suite, and include:

• A $50 gift card to the 900 shops, one per room per night;

• free makeovers at Bloomingdale, one per each guest per stay;

• $100 daily spa credit, one per room, per night; and

• an in-room visit by the Martini Man, who brings his traveling Martini Cart to the guest room.

Affinia Hotel Shopping Package from $149

Ready to hit the stores again for Valentine’s Day? Affinia Hotels in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. have a “Shopper’s Survival” package now through March 31. The deal includes:

• $50 Bloomingdale’s Gift Card

• Bloomingdale’s signature tote bag with 15% savings pass

• Jacques Torres healthy “AM Quickie” Chocolate Bar for energy and a bottle of water

• Makeover at Lancome in Bloomingdale’s and

• 25% discount at SPAffinia.

Affinia Chicago starts at $199 per night and Affinia Manhattan in New York at $219 per night. At Washington, DC’s Liaison Capitol Hill, An Affinia Hotel, rates are from $149 per night, without the Bloomingdale’s savings pass or Lancome makeover. Be sure to mention the promotional code STYLE when you book.

Splash for FREE at Coco Key Water Resorts

CoCo Key Water Resorts in Cincinnati and Columbus are offering a Stay the Night, Splash for Free holiday campaign now through Dec. 23. Book a mid-week stay Monday through Thursday in the adjoining hotel to any CoCo Key Water Resort and receive an “All-Access” pass to the indoor water park for the length of your the stay. The offer’s also good at CoCo Key Water Resorts in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska and New Jersey.

Four Seasons Chicago Package from $365

Four Seasons Hotel Chicago is offering a Be Our Holiday Guest package for travelers visiting family in the Windy City. The package, from $365 per night, includes:

• A room with Lake Michigan or city views
• Daily Midwest breakfast for two
• Two complimentary holiday cocktails with roasted chestnuts by the fire in Seasons Lounge
• Choice of pumpkin pie, pecan pie or cookie tray to present to the party host.

Awash with Sights on the Chicago River

By Betsa Marsh

On a beautiful spring day, there may be no more serene way to explore a city than gliding along on a quiet boat, looking up at the tall buildings and sighing. It works in Venice, it works in Chicago.

In the Windy City, the focus is on those tall buildings during Chicago Architecture Foundation cruises, which take us along the Main, North and South Branches of the Chicago River to see angles we’d never see any other way.

The Wrigley Building, left, and the Tribune Tower. Betsa Marsh photo

Volunteer docents weave in some painless history and give us the skinny on more than a century of building ever higher.

And while Chicago likes to proclaim it’s the birthplace of the modern skyscraper, as a loyal Cincinnatian I have to toss my vote to the 1902-03 Ingalls Building downtown, which was the first reinforced-concrete high-rise office building in the world.

But I don’t quibble as I drift past Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City, Mies van der Rohe’s 330 N. Wabash, and the Sears Tower, tallest in the Western Hemisphere. Docent Michael Defty tells us to look quick at the black landmark, because it’s

The 311 S. Wacker Building in the foreground with the Sears Tower behind. Betsa Marsh photo

soon slated for a coat of silver to help deflect the heat. Plus a glass bump-out that will let the truly brave step out onto a glass bridge and look 1,000 feet straight down. You go ahead–no really, you first.

Brutus Hits the Chicago Highlights

Brutus casts his reflection on the Atomic Gate at Millennium Park, which everyone calls The Bean. Betsa Marsh photo

By Betsa Marsh

Brutus the Traveling Teddy wanted to see the famous Chicago landmarks, so he hopped onto an architecture river cruise, met the American Gothic farm couple and splashed in the Crown Fountain at Millennium Park.

Brutus travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers.

The furry little traveler saw the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier 

Brutus and the Ferris wheel at the Navy Pier. Betsa Marsh photo

and admired the Wrigley Building as he glided along on the Chicago River.

The Wrigley Building from the Chicago River. Betsa Marsh photo

He was amazed by the giant figures of the farmer and his wife inspired by Grant Wood’s American Gothic, which hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.

And he wasn’t ready when the face on the Crown Fountain started squirting water!

The Crown Fountain suddenly squirts!

Artwork Glows in Chicago’s New Modern Wing

By footbridge, view and sensibility, the Modern Wing is connected to Millennium Park. Betsa Marsh photo

From the outside, architect Renzo Piano’s new Modern Wing for the Art Institute of Chicago is so restrained you want to take a pulse. But from the inside, the white walls, white oak floors and miles and miles of glass set a glow around the art and bring Chicago in through the panes.

View from the Modern Wing to Millennium Park and the Chicago Skyline. Betsa Marsh photo

The Modern Wing, which opens May 16, cozies up to Millennium Park, acting almost as call and response to architect Frank Gehry’s exuberance in next-door Millennium Park.

Where Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion peels back glittering stainless steel petals like an exploding rose, Piano’s Modern Wing answers in calm, vertical lines of glass, steel and limestone. Where Gehry’s BP Footbridge squiggles through the landscape, Piano’s 620-foot-long Nichols Bridgeway shoots a straight line from the AIC above Monroe Street into the park.

Inside, the Modern Wing traces art from 1900 to the present, sweeping from Matisse and Picasso through Warhol and Lichtenstein and up to Cy Twombly. Photography and architecture and design have new homes, too.

The Modern Wing is free through May 22, and on the 23rd prices pop up to $18 per adult, $12 per student and senior and free for children 2 and younger.