Philadelphia

12/04/12-14/04/12

Having seen Washington I was moving on again this time back to Pennsylvania to visited one of America’s first cities – Philadelphia. After my long bus rides with Greyhound this trip would only take 3 hours to make the journey eastwards. I arrived in the afternoon so only went out to take a quick look around the town. Having missed lunch because I was stuck on the bus I made for one of the local street vendors to try out the local Philly Cheese Steak, literally a roll filled with little cuts of steak covered in cheese. It turned out to be very filling, back home I guess we would have a bacon roll instead.

Out early the next day I was going to stick to the old town part of the city, the area which contains a variety of important sites relating to the establishment of the United States. I first made for the visitor centre to pick up my ticket to visit the Independence Hall and to watch the short film ‘Independence’ about the creation of the founding documents. After the film I walked a short distance across the road to see the grave of Benjamin Franklin. He was a local man who played a prominent role during the war of independence. Next it was time for me to join my tour of Independence Hall. Inside this building the founding documents were debated and revised before being formerly adopted an act of treason at the time. The first governments also operated in buildings on this site before they were moved to Washington DC in 1800. Next I joined the queue to see the famous cracked Liberty Bell, luckily the queue moved quickly so it wasn’t long before I got to see it with my own eyes. The bell has more meaning to certain campaign groups who used it as a symbol in their struggle of equality. After I entered the Second Bank of America to see portraits of all the famous figures that had a role in creating the United States. I then followed the road all the way down to Penn’s Landing which runs along the nearby river before working my way back to see the site where Franklin had his property in the old town, a ‘ghost’ house now stands on the site, steel beams outline where the house would have stood. As it was still early I made a quick visit to the city hall in the downtown area before retracing my steps back to the hostel.

Picking up where I left off the day before I head back to the city hall before bypassing it to continue further west to the museum district of the city. Following the straight road it took me all the way to the steps of the Philadelphia art gallery, the steps are being known for being the ones the character Rocky runs up in the original film which I was tempted to repeat. Seeing that the gallery had a Van Gogh exhibition on I couldn’t resist purchasing a ticket to see some of his artwork up close. I spent the main part of the morning and early afternoon looking round the gallery before heading out into the sun to take a walk down by the riverside to check out the various boat houses sat on the bank of the river. I was surrounded by locals out jogging and riding bikes, it made me look forward to when I could play sport again back home. Heading back to the city centre I made a division to first check out the notorious Eastern Penitentiary Prison that held some of America’s most famous prisoners but only walking around the outside I didn’t get much of a view due to the imposing surrounding wall, it looked more like a medieval castle rather than a prison. Back in town I walked round the Chinatown area before taking my last tour of the old town.