EVANSTON-We got an appetizer of Northwestern's spectacular new athletic facilities in April, when Ryan Fieldhouse opened for a spring practice. Today, we got the main course.

Local media toured Nortwestern's Ryan Fieldhouse and Walter Athletics Center on Thursday, after the Wildcats' second practice of fall camp. It's been called the Taj Fitz, the Fitz Carlton and the nicest facility in college football.

Those labels just don't do it justice,

Northwestern's new $270-million lakefront palace would be awe-inspiring if it were located in Tuscaloosa or Columbus or Clemson. The fact that it sits campus in Evanston, at little old Northwestern, makes it jaw-dropping.

The guided tour took well over an hour and we walked more than a mile in all. If our guide would have disappeared halfway through the tour, it probably would have taken the group of writers more than an hour to find our way out on our own through mazes of rooms and hallways. It's that big, on the scale of a major city's convention center more than a college athletic facility.

But more than the size, it's the attention to detail that is perhaps most stunning. Head coach Pat Fitzgerald said that his team finished its strength training session on the first day of camp 22 minutes earlier than it did in the old facility at the Nicolet Center. More weight machines means less standing around. When a rain storm popped up this morning, an observer said that it took the team seven minutes to get everyone inside. There are cubby holes for each player on a long hallway so that when they come off the field, they can put their helmet, shoulder pads and shoes in the cubby and then go right into a meeting without having to go all the way to the locker room first.

They thought of everything.

And the views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago Skyline aren't bad, either.

So take a walk through Northwestern's shiny new home with us in this photo gallery.