We made a quick trip to Philadelphia last week! We wanted to take advantage of the other Bolt Bus route we hadn’t tried yet. I love all the early American history so I knew I would enjoy it, which I did!
We left on Friday afternoon. When we arrived it was pouring rain. We hung out in the hotel waiting for it to clear up and Jacob got us some food from the Reading Terminal Market across the street. Once it finally stopped raining enough to go out, it was after 5 and all the sights were closed. We spent the evening walking around the neighborhood and ended up having dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. I’d never had any interest in eating at a HRC, but it was the only restaurant nearby and we had a discount from the Philadelphia Passes we’d purchased. The food was better than I expected and we had fun watching music videos of 80s hair bands.
Saturday morning we started off with a hop on/hop off tour. It’s probably the worst hop on/hop off tour of any city I’ve visited but there’s only one or two companies to choose from in Philly.
The view from outside our hotel.
Beautiful City Hall with the 37 foot statue of William Penn on top. When it was built it was supposed to be the world’s tallest building but when it was finished it had been surpassed by the Eiffel Tower. It was, however, the world’s tallest habitable building. The statue of Penn is the tallest statue atop a building in the world.
Jacob on the tour.
Philadelphia Art Museum. The front of the building is where the famous scene from Rocky takes place. They were setting up for an event on the stairs so I didn’t get a good picture.
Philadelphia commissioned a copy of this statue from artist Emmanuel Frémiet. He sent the original and made one with revised proportions for the Luxemborg in Paris. Although he preferred his revised version, the original is worth more.
Statue of Lincoln. It’s not exactly accurate since Lincoln is holding his pen in his right hand and he is a lefty!
Another view of City Hall. Our tour guide pointed out that the statue looks different from this angle. If you can’t tell, the scroll in his hand looks like something else. I wouldn’t have shared that with you but it’s a big Philadelphia joke. And it’s pretty funny.
The liberty bell!
Independence Hall (we toured the inside on Sunday)
Saturday afternoon we took the Ducks Tour, which was part of our pass. It duplicated some of the hop on/hop off tour but also visited some other places. And of course, it splashed into the Delaware River too!
Not exactly historical… Larry Fine of the 3 Stooges was born in this building. Philadelphia has some amazing murals, I wish we could have gone on the mural tour.
Benjamin Franklin bridge
Us on the Ducks tour. Jacob’s lips are red because we’d just eaten some
Water Ice!
That night we visited the Franklin Institute. We got there too late to see any of the regular museum but we got late night admission to the Star Trek and Galileo exhibition. Jacob was so excited about the Star Trek stuff! He only likes Next Generation though, for the record. He always tells people that. I wasn’t very interested but it was fun to see him enjoying the exhibit. Here’s some pictures of him. He was especially excited to get a picture on the “the bridge” in the captain’s chair. Too bad it was too dark to get a decent picture of this exciting moment.
We had dinner at a delicious restaurant right across the street from the “Friendship Gate” entrance to Chinatown. It was called Szechuan Tasty House if you are ever in Philly and want to check it out.
Sunday morning we took the audio walking tour. It was pretty hot and humid that morning so we didn’t do the whole thing, just the interesting parts! Then we got to take the tour of
Independence Hall. So amazing to be in the building where the Declaration of Independence was signed, the second Continental Congress took place and the Constitution was signed. This room has been restored but the chair at the front is the original chair that George Washington sat in during the Continental Congress.
We stopped by Benjamin Franklin’s grave to leave a penny for good luck.
We stopped in quickly at the oldest Quaker Meetinghouse still in use in Philadelphia. It was small but my ancestors were Quakers so I wanted to check it out.
In the afternoon we visited the National Constitution Center, which is a fantastic museum even though it doesn’t contain the original Constitution. They do a beautiful 20 minute production about the history of the country and the Constitution. And they have a fantastic interactive exhibit of American history from the beginning of the country until the present day. And they have a room with full-size statues of the signers of the Constitution, which Jacob thought was awesome. We were in a rush but I could have stayed all afternoon!
We attempted to tour the Masonic Temple but it was closed.
Instead we made a quick trip back to the Franklin and caught the last show at the planetarium.
Then we rushed over to Sonny’s so Jacob could get his fourth or fifth cheesesteak of the weekend! He loved comparing them. We heard that Sonny’s made a good one so we got it and zipped to our bus just in time. It’s only a 2 hour ride back to New York and the view is really nice. It was such a fun trip!
