Matt and Lisa's Adventures

25 May 2023

Up early and out the door to catch the Amtrak train to Philadelphia. The train was comfortable and the journey took 90 minutes. When we arrived it was colder than expected and we decided to change into jeans however we couldn’t access a bathroom so we did a sneaky change in the hotel lobby. When we went to store our bags they actually had our room ready which was a surprise and meant we could have changed with a lot more privacy!

We headed out to explore Philly but needed some breakfast first. We struggled to find somewhere and we were getting hangry so decided to go to Wendy’s – which was a mistake. Lisa had the bacon and egg sandwich but the bacon was over cooked. I had the biscuit with sausages and egg – it was heavy and stodgy, not a good start. Interestingly there are no McDonald’s in the city centre of Philly as the housing boom has pushed up rents. But surprisingly other places have flourished and we saw a million Dunkin’ Donuts. 

We walked to the historic Betsy Ross house for a walking tour of the historic area. The tour was good but Lisa was concerned that our guide, Marianne, was a bit too in love with the founding fathers. Highlights:

• Betsy Ross house. She was the creator of the first US flag and buried outside her house. Not sure if any of that was actually true, but it makes for a good story!
• We saw the oldest continuously occupied street in the USA. It still has lots of little houses and twice a year they open the insides so people can go through. It would be so weird having people come and look at your house all day long
• We saw mirrors attached to a house so that people upstairs could watch out the window to see what was going on. They were called busybodies and back in the day would have been a good source of entertainment. 
• The city is obsessed with Benjamin Franklin. Pretty much everything was founded or created by him. The first post office, firefighters, fire insurance, library etc. Sounds like a hell of a guy and gets a lot of recognition. He retired at 42 after realising he had made enough money and went on to do all sorts of science and charity work. He was a printer by trade and printed newspapers and almanacs which were like a modern wikpedia and google search all built into one. 
• The buildings where the continental congress met, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the first Supreme Court and congresses were held. All very nice buildings and very important to the Americans. 
• Saw the liberty bell but only by looking through the window as it was a massive queue to go inside. It just looks like a bell with a crack, I didn’t get the hype around it. 
• Finished at the grave of Benjamin Franklin where we were each given a penny to throw on it. They collect $5,000 per year for this which is a lot of pennies!

After the tour we had to jump in an Uber to make it to our Philly food tour. Our guide, Jonny, talked a lot but seemed to know what he was talking about. It was a fun tour and certainly very different from the food tour we had done in Rome.

• First stop was for tomato pie. This looks similar to pizza but the base was different and the topping was a tomato sauce more like what would go on pasta than pizza. No other toppings and no cheese. It was really good but you couldn’t make a whole meal of it
• Next was pretzels with mustard. Lisa loved it, but I’m not a bread person and so I didn’t really get it. It was fine when it was hot, but the mustard didn’t add anything and I wouldn’t waste calories on eating it again 
• We then stopped at a high class steak restaurant not for food but just for a look. It was very nice with some very expensive wines. It was in an old bank building and they had turned the safe into a dining room which was cool. 
• Then it was main course of cheesy chips and cheese steak. The chips had cheese wiz on them, which was ok and better than the cheese whiz we had with the nachos at the baseball. The cheesesteak sandwich was pretty tasty. I mean it was good, but I wouldn’t go raving about it.  Jonny said that roast pork sandwiches are better and I would love to try them
• Dessert was at the Reading Terminal Market which was very impressive. We had a cookie from a stall that has won the cookie of the year award a few times. I thought it was delicious but Lisa wasn’t a big fan. We the finished up with a donut

Overall the tour was a lot of fun and we got to try a good selection of foods we otherwise would not have had. 

We are big fans of the show Always Sunny in Philadelphia and one of the creators had opened a pub based on Paddy’s pub in the show. We walked there to get a beer. We were taking photos outside when a gentleman from the bar offered to take a photo of the two of us. It was a great photo of us but he managed to cut off the name of the pub which defeated the purpose! Inside they allowed smoking but were very strict on ID checks which took us ages to resolve. The beer was ok but the bar wasn’t anything special. 

On the way back we stopped at the oldest bar in Philly. It was meant to be Irish but was more American. There was a group of very noisy people who were yelling and singing – which was very annoying so we left as soon as we had finished our drink. 

Thoughts on Philly:

• Definitely had a big city vibe compared to DC 
• Very dominated by the history around the Declaration of Independence 
• Quite a few homeless people include a few just passed out on the street which wasn’t nice to see
• The big buildings block the sun which along with the colder weather made it feel colder
• Streets are quite narrow which doesn’t help the lack of light and made walking the streets feel claustrophobic
• The state only issues a rear license plate for each car as a way to reduce cost. This took a long time to get used to and just seemed like a stupid idea. Particularly annoying when waiting for an Uber and not being able to identify it from the front!