We came to Detroit for a quick, overnight trip, for the primary purpose of viewing the Caravaggio painting, “Martha and Mary Magdalene” at the Detroit Institute of Arts. This gave us the perfect opportunity to stay at a hotel that I’ve been wanting to check out for a while – the Shinola Hotel. Shinola is a high-end watch and leather goods brand based out of Detroit, and they have brought a lot of attention to the city. I think this…
We ate a ton of amazing food in 2022, and it was really hard to narrow down the top five restaurants for the year. A few choices were easy, but there was so much deliciousness this year, it was tough to pick just five, but it had to be done! Below is my countdown of the top five restaurants I ate at in 2022! 5. Roister, Chicago, USA The fifth spot on the list was actually the most difficult to…
2022 was a year of travels to all sorts of cities around the world for ChiLuxe Travel. We took three trips to Europe, making up for lost time during the pandemic. There was a lot of time spent at restaurants in Chicago, as well as a few domestic trips including Orlando and Las Vegas (the two places in the USA where it’s easiest to forget about my day job!). 2023 will be quite a different year with a focus on…
So 2022 will always be the year that I started this blog, and I have really loved every minute of it. I love writing about my current trips, and I especially love writing about my past trips, which I call my “nostalgia” posts. Since I have a full time job, I unfortunately can’t be traveling all the time, so I like to fill in the gaps between travel with my nostalgia posts. I also really love finding photos and videos…
2022 was a year full of trips to exciting cities, mainly in Europe this year, after a two-year hiatus due to COVID, so I decided to do a countdown of my favorite cities of the year. 5. Madrid, Spain Coming in at Number 5 is Madrid, Spain. We spent a short three nights here in June of this year, with our two youngest kids. Madrid is amazing because it can be whatever you want it to be. It can be…
My mom always had a dream to go to Vienna at Christmastime for the markets. My dad is not super into traveling, so I really wanted to make this trip happen for her. In 2019, we made it happen! This article is going to take a look back out our week-long outing in Vienna, which was super fun, even if it was super cold! Vienna at Christmastime conjures up all sorts of visions of cozy markets, drinking mulled wine, snow…
We spent 5 nights in Dublin, and this article will be my overview of the highlights of the trip. I’ll include links to my other articles if you are looking for more of a deep dive. We flew direct to Dublin from Chicago, a short 6.5-ish hour flight. Dublin is SO close to the east coast and middle America, it’s easy to simply spend a long weekend here. This was the original plan, but when booking with Marriott points, you…
This is my Ode to Oriole in Chicago. My amazing husband brought me here for my birthday this year. Oriole is a two-star Michelin restaurant on the near north side of Chicago, and for me, it probably deserves a third star. I didn’t really want to do a full review of the place, it was my birthday after all, but I did take a ton of photos of my experience here, and I wanted to document it on my blog…
Dublin has a rich Catholic history, but the two main Cathedrals that you can visit in Dublin are no longer Catholic. This article is going to focus on Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We came to St. Patrick’s Cathedral first, and it cost 8 Euro to get in for adults. There was no line when we arrived, and we didn’t get tickets in advance, but as we were leaving a bus full of tourists arrived and the line…
This is a post dedicated to the primary reason why I enjoy Dublin so much – the parks and the rich literary history coming from here. It really helps to come to Dublin if you enjoy literature, because apart from drinking, literature is the next biggest thing here. Dublin is full of bookstores – both used and new – and has an enormous literary history which continues to develop with modern Irish authors to this day. Dublin is proud of…