Philadelphia - day 1

October 2
Friday

With Jean as my own personal tour guide, I didn't want to take a standard tour of the city.

Checked into a great place to stay for RVs in Philly,  Park and Ride, in a light industrial area near downtown.  Whoever developed this concept was genius.  It's just a big asphalt lot for commuters and RVs to park and ride a shuttle into town or to the bus stop that takes them wherever, avoiding downtown parking issues. For us it was perfect because the Doodle is too tall for parking garages and there are no open lots in town.

What it lacked in ambiance, it made up for in convenience.

And at $30/day the price was right.

The large building had restrooms and showers.

What more did we need from a place we were only going to be spending the night?!

What do you think of when you think of Philadelphia?  American Bandstand, right?  

Wrong, Philly is the place that gave America Rocky Balboa!

Wrong again!  Philadelphia is America's birthplace, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and a lot of other historically significant happenings happened.

Because it was still cold and rainy from the hurricane offshore, we spent the first day doing mostly indoor activities.

Started at the Barnes Museum along Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the Champs Elysee of Philly.

In this city of old buildings, the Barnes is a new museum, very contemporary in design and crammed with hundreds of paintings from the Impressionist era;  Cezanne, Matisse, et al. 

And I do mean crammed. Most of the paintings were only inches apart from each other. I could have stayed all day.

A short walk to the majestic

 Philadelphia Museum of Art.

It's become the city's top tourist attraction, not because of its 500,000 works of art, but because its front steps are the ones Sylvester Stallone ran up in Rocky and yelled "Yo, Adrian!"

We saw people doing just that and having their photo taken with the Rocky statue and never bothering to go into the museum!

At the beginning of Fairmount Park are row houses, literally.  These are the meeting houses for nine rowing clubs, where you can see their sculls stored along the

 Schuylkill (SKOO-kill) River. 

It was raining so no practice today.

The father and brother of Philadelphia native, Grace Kelly, were both Olympic champions in sculling. 

This bronze is of her father, John, who won in 1920 and 1926. Son Jack won in 1960.

Mount Pleasant

On thru beautiful Fairmount Park and its more than four thousand acres of  paths and bridal trails. It is the world's largest city park.

We marveled at the foresight of city fathers who purchased the land from wealthy 18th and 19th century Philadelphians for a park before it was divided up into smaller residential plots.

Twenty historic homes still remain in the park. Ten are restored and open to the public.

We saw Mount Pleasant, built in 1762 by sea captain/privateer(pirate), John Macpherson.

After he made a bundle pirating in the French and Indian War, he wanted to join polite society so built this Georgian mansion.

One of its owners, Benedict Arnold, bought it as a wedding present for his bride, but he was convicted of treason before they could occupy it.

Before we left Philly we came back here for a Fall Festival. 

We tasted hand pressed apple cider and sampled beer we watched being brewed the old fashioned way.

Listened to some Blue Grass by the

 Dill Pickle Band, which sounded suspiciously like the same song by the third time around.

Toured thru Chestnut Hill, 

a chi-chi part of town. Elegant stores and restaurants line both sides of the cobblestone street.

It's a place where you might

  see someone famous if you pay attention.

Ended the day in South Philly with

world-renowned cheese steak sandwiches from the twin bastions of Gino's and Patt's, the two most famous places for cheese steaks.

This is required eating here, a gooey mess of beef, melted cheese, and fried onions in a big roll. A good Philly cheese streak could kill you.

Hundreds of

firefighter and police badges on display at Geno's along with photos of famous customers filling the walls.

Pat Sajak and Vanna White were there.

We did an A-B comparison of steaks from the two places by buying one from each and cutting them in half.

In spite of Geno's larger sign and all of those badges, Patt's had the better sandwich. Much thinner sliced beef.

A fun first day in Philly.