Hey friends,
My second venture into the world of blogging is in regard to our weekend in Philadelphia. Anne and I headed down to celebrate her birthday (a little early) and get a little brotherly love, oh...I mean...see the sights. We took a bus from NYC which is a cheap, easy way to get there and only took about 1.5 hours each way. We checked into a positively darling little B&B, chock full of antiques, curios, and other little trinkets that just melted our hearts, I think my comment to Anne was "Better watch it, or I just might marry this precious little house!" Oh how we did laugh at that one for nearly the entire afternoon.
OK, I think I've successfully ridden that into the ground, so moving on. The first place we went was Jim's Cheesesteak's, on the recommendation of several people who said it was better than the other, more famous places (i.e. Geno's and Pat's). I have to say we agreed that these were quite delicious, and no doubt the best cheesesteaks either of us have tried by far. After that we walked past Independence Hall on our way to Reading Terminal. We didn't stop in to see the Liberty Bell as it was quite a line, and neither of us had a real interest in waiting through it. Reading Terminal was a pretty neat place. It's an old train terminal that they've turned into a giant sort of food court. Pretty much any kind of food you could want is available, so we cruised through there and had some homemade pickles and cookies, etc. which were tasty. So at this point we had already eaten twice in the span of about 2 hours and were feeling pretty fit. Next we walked through downtown on the way to the art museum. Everyone claimed this was a crazy far walk, but it really wasn't that bad, and we got to go past that (evidently) famous LOVE s
ign arranged as a square. This is often seen on t-shirts, and I am probably the only person who didn't know that it was actually art somewhere. So we got to the art museum and each did the obligatory run up the steps and throw your hands up as in Rocky. Personally, I wanted to take a page out of Rocky 3 and climb the steps and throw my motorcycle helmet at the statue of Rocky, but regrettably the statue is on the ground not at the top, and I had no motorcycle helmet at my disposal. We did get some photo's with Rocky's statue, that was pretty cool and after about 20 minutes we had both seen all of the world famous Philly art museum that either of us cared to (we're very culturally savvy). After this we walked to Rittenhouse square which was absolutely my kind of place. Sort of like a giant shopping mall, only outdoors with fancy stores. Needless to say the potential amount of shopping a person could do there had me dizzy with pleasure. We did shop around for a bit, the Mrs. picked up a new outfit and was very gracious in limiting her time spent for my sake. I have no doubt she could have stayed several consecutive days in a place like that, in this case though it was only a couple of hours. Next we went back to the room, showered up and got ready for our evening. We went and had a couple of drinks outside at a place that was evidently a house at some point in time. Oh boy, not just any house though, the birthplace of original stooge Larry Fine, this pleased me for some reason. Next we checked out another establishment that was pretty good, all of which were located on South Street which is a shopping/restaurant/bar type of street. After that we went to dinner at a place called Beau Monde. It was a creperie and had a really good atmosphere. The food we got was absolutely fantastic as well. This place I would highly recommend if ever in Philly. After dinner it was getting later so we had a few more drinks and called it a night. A great day top to bottom, and we definitely had a good time.
Sunday, we got up and walked through the Italian market, also a famous Philadelphia landmark. This was a pretty neat area, although it seemed to be more deserving of the moniker Hispanic Market, but that's really neither here nor there. At the end of this street we happened upon Geno's and Pat's world famous cheesesteak places. Each claims to be the creator and the best etc. We decided to get one and share it to see how it stacked up to Jim's. We chose Pat's because it looked a little more old fashion and the line was longer there (which it got longer at the other place while we're eating, so who knows). Jim's was definitely better, not even close really. Afterward we went and got some breakfast (I'm not sure why I'm not obese), walked around a bit more and then went to catch our bus home. Overall, Philadelphia is a really cool place. We will definitely head back sometime and see more of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment