What's happening in Chicago this week?

Saturday mornings in Chicago start at Green City Market inside Lincoln Park, between North Avenue and Clark Street. The market opens at 7am from May through October, and by 9am the produce stalls smell like fresh basil and ripe stone fruit from downstate Illinois farms. You'll find local chefs loading up on morels and ramps through June. The crowd is mostly Lincoln Park locals with strollers, not tourists. Walk south from there through Lincoln Park Zoo, which is free every day, and you're at North Avenue Beach by 10:30. Lake Michigan water in mid-June is still cold enough to make you gasp, around 16°C. Saturday afternoon is prime time for an architecture boat tour on the Chicago River. The Chicago Architecture Center runs departures every 30 to 45 minutes from the Michigan Avenue bridge, and the 2pm slot tends to be the least packed. The view of the 1920 Wrigley Building catching afternoon light off the river is the one photo you'll actually keep.

Sunday mornings shift south. Maxwell Street Market sets up on South Desplaines Street between 7am and 3pm. It has been running in some form since 1912. The taco stands are the reason to come. Birria tacos from the vendors near the Halsted Street end, with consomme for dipping, cost about $4 each. The smell of charred corn and grilled onions carries across 2 city blocks. After Maxwell Street, the Museum Campus is a 15-minute drive south or a short transfer on the L. The Field Museum, founded in 1893, and the Shedd Aquarium share the same lakefront strip near Soldier Field. Sunday afternoons tend to be busier than Saturdays at both, so arrive before noon if you want to see Sue the T. rex without 30 people pressing behind you. Worth noting, the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park, open since 1933, is a separate trip about 10 miles south and better saved for a weekday.

Weekdays give you Chicago's best deal on time and space. The Art Institute of Chicago, open since 1879, is half-empty on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. The Impressionist galleries on the second floor, where Seurat's 'A Sunday on La Grande Jatte' hangs, feel almost private before 11am. Monday is the tricky day. The Art Institute stays open, but several smaller museums close, including the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen. Millennium Park and Cloud Gate, the Bean sculpture installed in 2004, are a 5-minute walk east from the Art Institute. Weekday mornings the plaza is quiet enough to see your reflection in the steel without 40 phones crowding the frame. Thursday evenings are when the restaurant-industry crowd fills bars in Wicker Park and Logan Square. The Violet Hour on North Damen Avenue in Wicker Park doesn't take reservations. Get there before 7pm, because the wait after 8pm stretches past 45 minutes, and the cocktails at $16 to $18 each are worth the early arrival.

Mid-June in Chicago is the window before July's heavy humidity arrives. Daytime temperatures currently sit around 22°C, and the lake effect keeps the Near North Side 2 to 3 degrees cooler than neighborhoods further west like Humboldt Park. Afternoon rain cells tend to build around 3pm over the western suburbs and push east, but they pass in 20 to 30 minutes. If you're on the Riverwalk when one hits, duck into City Winery or Tiny Tapp for a drink and wait it out. Evenings along the lakefront stay light until nearly 8:30pm through the solstice, and the temperature drops enough for a light jacket by 9pm. That 80% humidity you'll notice tonight makes the air thick, almost soft. The city sounds change after dark. Waves hit the breakwater at North Avenue Beach. The Brown Line rumbles above Wabash Avenue. Willis Tower, built in 1971 and still Chicago's tallest at 442 meters, catches the haze off the lake and glows against the western sky.