Philadelphia has always been a city that I wanted to visit! Being from Boston with it's rich heritage dating back to the American Revolution, Philadelphia has had an equally rich history being the site of the Constitution and home of the first two presidents of the United States well before the White House was imagined. On top of that, they stole Benjamin Franklin from Boston, his birthplace. So off we went compliments of Southwest Airlines!

We arrived at 1:35 p.m. so after checking into Hotel Monoco in 'old city' Philly, we had a little time to explore the first day we arrived!


Above is the outside of our hotel and Sylvia already getting comfortable with the room!

The Hotel was strategically located and literally one block from 3 historical sites: The Liberty Bell, The President's House and Independence Hall where the Constitution was drawn up and signed.

Above, of course, is the famous cracked Liberty Bell! Also, I am next to a Benjamin Franklin statue at the visitor's center just outside the housing of the bell. To the left is Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were drawn up by the leaders of the day!

Next, we headed to the Reading Terminal Market for some grub! It is a landmark staple in downtown Philly famous for it's variety of great food and shopping!


As you can tell, we went for the pasta! I had lasagna and Sylvia had the spaghetti, meatball and chicken parmesan! Then we did a little shopping.

There were several pastry shops. We settled on the Flying Monkey dessert shop and got a variety including a whoopie pie, a s'mores brownie and a couple of cookies to take home with us!

By then, our 1-hour electric car tour was waiting for us. I scheduled a brief tour of the city and it was well worth it. We got to see several of the main tourist attractions of the city briefly. The last picture, below, is a picture of the Schuykill River, one of two rivers in Philadelphia, the other one being the more famous Delaware River separating Philadelphia from New Jersey!

Below, we did spend a little more time at one place, the Rocky Statue near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There are two Rocky statues -- one at the top of the stairs and one at the bottom. We chose the bottom one that day for convenience. In the middle picture, note the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the background. Then it was time to take the subway train home to our hotel. It had been a very full day!

The next day was also a very full day! It started with a short walk to the Museum of the American Revolution. We had a 1 hour tour that took us from the start of the rebellion to the end of the war! Lots of information! But along the way, we bumped into Little Susie's Pies. The big, burly guy serving us didn't look anything like I expected for 'little susie' but I wasn't going to ask? The pies, coffee and juice were delicious.

It was a crash review course in the American Revolution, but I'm not sure I could pass a detailed test by the time we left!

Then, it was time to try an authentic Philly Cheesesteak! There are about a million cheesesteak places in Philadelphia, many with their devolted advocates. So asking someone in Philadelphia where the best Cheesesteak is, will get you about a million answers. We tried Oh, Brother Cheesesteaks, and yes, they were delicious. But I have to admit (and Sylvia agrees) that Malik's Philly Phamous cheesesteak subs in San Antonio are just as good, so I guess we don't have to travel so far to get a good Philly Cheesesteak!

Feeling full and satisfied (even after only eating 1/2 of the sandwiches), we headed to our next destination -- The Betsy Ross House!




This was a lovely small house with a rich history of the woman who (supposedly) made the first american flag. The museum even explains that this is difficult to establish as fact but hey, I'm okay with Bestsy Ross getting the credit for it.

After leaving the Betsy Ross House, we stumbled upon the Museum of Illusions! It was a fun interactive place that took about an hour to complete.

Sylvia grew a bunch and I shrunk.
Chair illusion.

That well was only about 12" high, but looked endless with the help of mirrors.
Sylvia, floating on air.
Shadow split into colors by the magic of light.

George balancing himself on one hand.
Sylvia hanging from a building.
Walking through that spinning tunnel was almost impossible. I had to close my eyes to do it and felt like I was going to throw up at the end! Sheesh!

After the Museum of Illusions we were about two blocks from our hotel and decided to call it a day!

Our third day in Philly was a split day! We had tickets to see the Philadelphia Phillies baseball game starting at 6:30 pm, but used the early part of the day to visit City Hall and the surrounding area.

We had a tour of City Hall at noon, but having arrived about an hour early, we stopped in a cafe for a muffin and coffee. Then, located a half a block from City Hall is the LOVE statue by Robert Indiana. Hence, the park is called the love park. At the time of our visit, there was a couple actually getting married, so pictures were limited. The third picture shows Sylvia with the Phillies maskcot (Phillies Phanatic). Don't try to figure out what that animal is, because apparently nobody knows. The last picture above is the 'golden' Joan of Arc statue! We were told it was not actually made of gold, just painted that way!

Just outside City Hall is are two statues of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington! The statues are called, "The Bond". Per Wikipedia, the bronze statues shows Benjamin Franklin handing Lafayette's Masonic apron to Washington, depicting the bond founded by a desire for independence. Sylvia took a picture with them and you can see just how big they are! The first picture is Sylvia shopping for shoes. I told her that one didn't fit!

Then it was time for our tour of City Hall! The building was amazing! At the top is a statue of William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania principally as a sanctum for Quakers (of whom he was one) who were being persecuted for their religious beliefs! Although he looks 'tiny' in the picture of the building, from the poster you can see with people around the statue that he is quite huge! We went by elevator to the observation deck just below the statue.



From the observation deck in City Hall, you could see for miles! The first picture above, shows the Ben Franklin Bridge that connects Philadelphia to New Jersey and stretches over the Delaware river!

Then came time for the baseball game. There's nothing like being at the ballpark and enjoying a live game with a hotdog, peanuts and cracker jacks and a large supportive crowd. The Philadelphia Phillies are in first place in their division, and they were playing the second place team, the New York Mets! Honestly, it was no contest as the powerhouse Phillies easily won with a score of 11 to 3! I fully expect to see them in the World Series this year!

We wore shirts specifically purchased for this game. (Michelle bought mine for my birthday!) It was an overcast evening with temperatures of around 70 degrees -- perfect weather for a game!

The last full day of our trip before our flight home was "museum day". We got a later start than usual and walking the strip of the city where the main museums were was a little taxing! Our first stop was at the Barnes Foundation. This is a wonderful collection mostly from artists of the impression period. We had a 1-hour tour of the museum that was wonderful. We were told that this was the largest collection of paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse. Below are some highlights:



The first picture is a painting called, "Sylvia at a Starbucks". Actually we had a little time to kill and stopped in for a quick bite and drink before the tour. The second picture is the outside of the building. Then we have works by Picasso ("Acrobat and Young Harlequin") and Modigliani ("Redheaded Girl in Evening Dress"). I'm sure that these names were chosen long after the artists passed away as a description of the paintings themselves since they're so literal.


Above, is a Renoir ("Sailor Boy") followed by a picture of me looking at some of the artifacts. I didn't even know that Sylvia was taking that picture until I saw it that night! The last picture is by Cezanne ("The Card Players").


This last row shows a distictive dark painting by El Greco ("Apparition of the Virgin and Child"), a painting by Matisse, and then a whole lot of paintings of naked women! Many are by Renoir, who apparently liked to paint full figured women, and Cezanne who painted the 'fruit' and 'field' pictures shown!

As we walked along Benjamin Franklin Blvd, we passed the Rodin museum. I had seen many of his original sculptures in Paris on a trip in 2005. We did not go in, but did snap a picture of a replica of his most famous sculpture, THE THINKER (above)! Apparently, there are 4 replicas of the Thinker in different areas of the USA! The picture is dark but you can still see the features and there is a description next to it.

Then we moved on to the Philadelphia Museum of Art!

About 1/2 mile down the road from the Barnes Foundation was the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is universally famous for both it's architecture and collections but unfortunately for the museum, all that is overshadowed by the fact that Rocky Balboa ran up those 72 steps in the movie Rocky! Thus, the two statues of Rocky, one at the top of the stairs and one at the base, are the main attractions. I read that many more people have run up those steps to take a picture with the Rocky Statue than have actually gone into the museum. (I must confess that Sylvia and I are two of those people.) In the last picture (above), the top of the stairs look down to the George Washington statue and above him, you can see City Hall with William Penn on top!


This final picture is a triumphant Sylvia after running (somewhat) up the Rocky steps. We weren't exactly running and I couldn't even call it a fast walk -- maybe a slow crawl -- but we made it to the top.

We packed a lot into the first 4 days of our trip, but had a great time! I'm not sure if we'll ever get back to Philadelphia, but it was a memorable trip for both of us!

Below is an 8 second video of Sylvia walking through the spinning tunnel. Believe me, it looks easy on the video but without holding onto the railings, it is very difficult. She even stumbles a little at the beginning:

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