Happy New Year, friends. Since this is my first post of 2017, I want to wish the very best to each of you in this year. Mr. Right and I had a whirlwind holiday that involved a lot of movement. We were lucky to spend from Dec. 22 to the 26th with Jordan and her family in Charlotte. It was pure joy to watch Little Miss experience her first Christmas, but I must tell you that Jordan and Yankee were having as much fun as she was. Then we went to visit my 93-year-old father and 90 year-old mother to have a celebration with them. We arrived back in Lexington long enough to take showers and then we hopped on a plane and headed to Philadelphia for three days of fun. Our trip to Philadelphia was all about doing the tourist thing. I had not been there before, so, we decided it would be a great place to spend the last days before the new year. If we have a few days of down-time, we love to spend it taking a trip, like when we went to San Diego, to the Grand Canyon, and to Istanbul.
We arrived after midnight and awoke the next morning to a rainy Philadelphia. We decided to take the hop-on/hop-off city bus tour. We always like to do that in a new city so we can get a feel for the lay of the land. Since it was raining, taking the bus was a no-brainer. We drove past Betsy Ross’s house. Sorry for the quality, but I took these from a moving bus.
And we saw Ben Franklin’s grave…..
Many Ben Franklin statues…..
…..along with historic buildings like City Hall
I was able to get a photo of the Rocky statue and the steps at the art museum.
We learned that the day the movie scene of Rocky running up the steps was filmed, Sylvester Stallone was feeling under the weather, so, a stunt double ran all of the steps except the last ten.
After riding the entire tour, we decided to hop off at the Reading Market, which was jam packed with people who had the same idea we did. We walked all the way through it but decided it was too crowded and loud to eat our lunch there.
So, we pulled out our Yelp app, and looked for good restaurants for a late lunch and found a dandy – The Parc Restaurant on Rittenhouse Square. It was a huge and popular French bistro, and the food and atmosphere were perfect. I highly recommend it if you are ever in Philly. (Also, try to stay in the city center. We stayed at the Club Quarters Hotel which was in a great location.)
We had a window seat with a view of the square. One thing we learned about Philly is that there is a park and a water fountain within a mile of everything in the city. After lunch I went shopping which is always a good thing when there’s a Nordstrom Rack near our hotel.
The next morning was cold but sunny, and we decided to walk to the penitentiary and take a tour. It was the first prison in the USA and has been vacant for many years. The plan was to tear it down, but some concerned citizens convinced the powers that be to turn it into a museum. It is in horrible condition, but they hope to restore it some day.
Afterwards I went to the Philadelphia Art Museum, and it too was packed. I love to visit an art museum alone, and Mr. Right was fine with that. They were having a special exhibit of Frida Kahlo, and I was able to see some Monets.
We were scheduled to fly out on the third day, but we had time to walk to Constitution Hall and the Liberty Bell. It was so impressive to be in the same rooms where our government was formed and our constitution was written. This was the judicial branch’s room.
This is the room where our country’s founders met to write the constitution. They even had the same chair that George Washington sat in. That’s it to the right of the fire place.
We headed to the Liberty Bell which was right across the street. That was pretty much the end of our touring. It is definitely a city we would love to return to because there are still lots of sites we didn’t see. We were home before the clock struck midnight, but sadly, we were sound asleep when the new year rolled in.
Looks like an awesome trip!