It turns out that Philadelphia is an amazing City if you’re
travelling on a budget. After a 20 to 30
minute drive to the Park and Ride we found ample spaces at no cost, even for
massive RVs, and then the return train fare into the City was only $6 each. We agreed Parking and Riding was the way
forward and I still also stand by this next tip – even if you think you know
what attractions you want to see in a place, always go to the Visitors’ Centre
(VC). The one here was very
helpful. You need an allocated time slot
to visit Independence Hall, but the tour is free. The VC itself has interesting displays about
the history of slavery in the USA and the importance of the Liberty Bell,
before you cross over the road and queue up to see the real deal, again for
free.
Most of these attractions are
walking distance from the VC, with one important exception – The Rocky Steps –
or more precisely the concrete steps at the Museum of Art more commonly known
for appearing in the film ‘Rocky’.
Instead of buying a whole City tour, the helpful lady at the VC pointed
out that we could ride the City bus there and back for only $4.10 each instead
and she furnished us with the tokens we needed making it so simple a child
could manage. The bus was a great way of
seeing some more of the City on the way and it was worth making the effort to
see the steps and the Rocky statue there.
No one here was bothered about making a fool of themselves - groups of
grown men raced each other up the steps and countless people, ourselves
included, were pulling various poses for the essential photographs to be taken. Great fun:
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| View looking down the Rocky steps back towards the City |
The Museum of Art’s grounds themselves deserve some
attention. They’re beautiful and on the
opposite side to the infamous steps there is a weir with an historic water
pumping station overlooking it. Bear
with me, the station has been renovated for weddings as the view over the weir
and rowing houses opposite is breath-taking.
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| The Clock Tower of Independence Hall |
Back in the City Centre we took our time seeing the Liberty
Bell before making our allotted time at Independence Hall. It was impactive being in the very room with
some of the very same furnishings that legendary Americans such as Washington
sat in during the birth of the US Constitution.
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| Independence hall with the actual chair that George Washington used |
We will probably return
from this trip better educated in US History than our own… but maybe my memory
isn’t that good – writing this two months later I have forgotten many of the
interesting facts we were told that day that would have been great to show off
with – damn!
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| A list of what you can achieve in 84 years if you really put your mind to it! |
Not wanting the day to end we walked around some more to
visit locations relevant to Philadelphia’s most favourite person in the World
Ever – Benjamin Franklin. He’s
everywhere and they don’t miss an opportunity to teach how much he achieved in
his lifetime. In fact, there’s a list
near his Gravestone. Now we all know I
like a list! But this one was awe-inspiring;
That guy was busy, makes you feel quite guilty (see right)!
It was an opportunity to take the mick out of one of Simon’s best mates,
Ben Franklin (no relation), by taking various photos relating to the great man
himself and pretending they related to him…..
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| With my Philly steak & cheese... good times |
I don’t think I have mentioned any theory or reasoning
behind our direction of travel?! But Ruth, you said ‘the plan is there is no
plan’. Well, yes, but you must decide
which way to turn the steering wheel somehow!
Since we had cancelled our initial plans to hot-foot it to Austin, Texas
ASAP for the F1, the next time and place we HAD to be was Dallas, Texas on
Wednesday 18th November for a Morrissey gig. (This was obviously my thing, not Simon’s
thing; he is not a fan.) We’d only booked this gig because we knew we would be
in Texas for the racing, but never mind, plans change! In researching for the trip, I had stumbled
across some itineraries on the ‘Rough Guide’ website. When I travelled as a youngster many years
ago, my rough guide book was my bible.
Thankfully, these days you don’t need to lug such a hefty tome about
with you any more – bless the internet!
But their website had 6 colour-coded itineraries on it each which
they suggest should take about a month to do, ie 6 months in total – boom!
That’s how much time we have in the US! I’m not saying that we are going to
follow these itineraries rigidly but they are very useful for pointing out some
of the more interesting places to stop at and what for. For example, Philadelphia was on there. Whilst looking at this site my attention
wandered to another section entitled ‘Around America in 10 Sandwiches’. Hello, this could be fun! I am telling you this now as the
‘Philadelphia Steak and Cheese’ appears on this list and so today was the
inauguration of this important part of the trip! We’d stocked up on bananas, snacks and drinks
from Harvey to try and get us through the day as far as possible but, having
walked miles, we found a sandwich bar and bought a Steak and Cheese to
share. I was impressed considering the
fast-food-type establishment we bought it from – it was delicious! I posted a score out of ten onto Facebook
with a photograph and gave this eating experience 8/10.
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| Birth place of the Stars & Stripes |
That kept us going nicely to do some more wandering and make
the purchase of another shot glass for our collection. We’d had a lovely long day and seen
everything we wished to see. For
transport, the shared sandwich, coffees and our shot glass the whole day had
only set us back $52, that’s going to be tough to beat, as is
Philadelphia. Lovely City and lovely
people.
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| Sunset as we made it back to the Park & Ride |
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