Buckingham Fountain

A 1910 landmark hotel on Michigan Avenue's Cultural Mile, directly across from Grant Park and walkable to Millennium Park and the Art Institute.

A major art museum where kids under 14 get in free, with a family learning center, tiny miniature rooms and stained glass kids recognize.

Right across from Grant Park, a walk from the Museum Campus and Buckingham Fountain.

A three-acre play garden downtown with rope nets, a play ship and a seasonal splash pad, next to two rock-climbing walls and a looping ice-skating ribbon that turns into a scooter path in summer.

A free downtown park with Cloud Gate ("the Bean") and Crown Fountain, whose two towers spray water over a shallow plaza made for wading.

A landmark 1893 athletic-club building across from Millennium Park, now a Hyatt hotel whose old lap pool is a tiled event space rather than a place to swim.