KatelynMay 23, 2019 – May 28, 2019
Where We Stayed: Shannon’s Apartment
Trip Highlights:
- Katelyn’s First Trip to Philly
- Seeing the Philly Landmarks: Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Love Statue, Rocky Steps and more
- Magic Gardens and Murals
Favorite Restaurants:
Though as of writing this we’ve traveled to Philadelphia quite a few times over the past year or so, in May 2019 we took our first trip together from Milwaukee to Philadelphia to visit Sam’s sister Shannon over the Memorial Day long weekend. Sam had been to Philly a few times before this trip, but this was my (Katelyn’s) first trip.
On the morning of Thursday May 23rd, we boarded a very small plane and took the two hour direct flight to Philly. This was at the time (and continues to be now that we’ve taken this trip a few times) one of the smallest airplanes we’ve been on, but it is still the only direct flight between Philadelphia and Milwaukee. These planes have two seats on one side and only one seat on the other. On top of that, our usual check bags don’t fit in the overhead compartment (honestly our backpacks almost don’t fit in the overhead compartment) so we end up needing to gate check our suitcases before hopping on the plane.
Though we’re thankful that a direct flight exists between Milwaukee and Philadelphia, I will say these small planes have caused us issues getting home several times (the worst being our hectic travel home in January 2020), including this trip. But we’ll get to that later.
Our first stop in Philadelphia was an early lunch at Reading Terminal Market. Sam had been telling me stories ahead of this trip about how wonderful Reading Terminal was, and I have to say it lived up to the hype. Sam had his usual pastrami sandwich from Hershel’s deli and I tried a corndog from Fox and Sons, which has become a staple every time we visit Philly now.
Once we were full of delicious Reading Terminal goodies, we had a few hours to kill before we planned to meet up with Shannon after she finished teaching for the day. So, we headed over to the Museum of the American Revolution, which was the only museum in Philly that conveniently had a place for us to lock up our bags while we perused the museum.
This was one of the most well done history museums I’ve been to. You started on the second floor and each gallery you walked through slowly told the story of the revolutionary war and it’s after effects. Everything was incredibly visual, hands-on, and peppered with real artifacts (not just replicas).
After you finished in the galleries, you could sit in their theater which had a short film about the revolution and finished with the screen rolling up into the ceiling, revealing George Washington’s actual tent used during the war. We enjoyed wandering through for a few hours, before catching our train out into the suburbs and meeting up with Shannon for the rest of the evening.
Day two brought us back into Philadelphia, this time with Shannon, for a day full of the historical sites that Philly is known for. After getting our free tickets to see Independence Hall later that day, we headed across the street to check out the Liberty Bell in the morning before the grew too long later in the day. They had a little museum about the history of the Liberty Bell and it’s meaning before you viewed the bell itself.
We finished up at the Liberty Bell and walked over a few blocks to the Betsy Ross House. This is a restoration of the house that Betsy Ross lived in when she made the first American flag. As you walked through the house you slowly learned more and more about her story and how she came to create the first flag. It was a quick stop, but a neat look into an interesting tidbit of American history. It is pretty small though, so as Sam found out walking through the tiny doorways, you may need to watch your head.
The Betsy Ross House was also conveniently the meeting point for our walking tour that morning. We love taking walking tours when checking out cities, especially those given by Free Tours By Foot. We think they are a great way to get to know a city from a local who loves telling its story.
This trip we took the Independence Mall Tour as a way to quickly see all of the popular historic sites and hear the stories and history behind them. We ventured throughout Old City, checking out Elfreths Alley (the nation’s “oldest continuously inhabited residential street”), Christ Church, Carpenter Hall (site of the first continental congress), Franklin court and so much more. Our guide was great and we left the tour thoroughly entertained, but also thoroughly hungry. After a stop at The Bourse, another food hall in the area, we headed over to our next historical stop: Independence Hall.
Other than the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall is likely the most well-known and influential historical sites in Philadelphia. It was the site where both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and later adopted. It’s original steeple was the first home of the Liberty Bell as well.
In order to tour Independence Hall, you have to pick up a free timed ticket from the visitor center, which we luckily had done earlier in the day. It was a worthwhile and fitting stop to end our very historical day in Philadelphia!
After another stop at Reading Terminal Market, we took the train back to Glenside, where we indulged in another Philadelphia treat: Rita’s! Rita’s water ice is another staple of summer in Philly. All three of us ordered gelati, which is when custard and water ice (similar to a slushie, though slightly different) are layered together in a cup. Sam and I both ordered cherry ice with vanilla custard, while Shannon opted for mango ice and vanilla custard. Rita’s is only open seasonally, but this is still one of our favorite Philly treats when we’re visiting in the summer!
Our third day in Philly started with a trip to the United States Mint. The Mint has a small museum and an overlook area where you can look down into the Mint to see the coins being made below. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite realize that the Mint wouldn’t actually be operating on a Saturday, so no coins were in production that day, but we enjoyed the museum and want to make a trip back on a day that the Mint is in operation on a future trip.
If our second day was a day exploring Philly’s historical side, our third day could be classified as exploring Philly’s artistic side. After a quick lunch (at Reading of course) we started walking to check out the murals peppered throughout the city on our way to the Magic Gardens.
I’d never been to a city that had the sheer volume of murals that Philly has. Philly’s Mural Arts Program started as an anti-graffiti movement in the 80’s, and today more than 4,000 murals have been created through the program. We particularly enjoyed one mural that had a giant wheel you could spin. Spinning the wheel provided you a number, which corresponded to a fortune that was painted within the mural.
Our mural walk ended at the Philadelphia Magic Gardens. The Magic Gardens are a giant mosaic art installation created by Isaiah Zagar. He created this space full of stairs, tunnels, little rooms, and more areas to walk through using found objects. It’s honestly hard to describe this place. We greatly enjoyed wandering through and taking photos with the art.
After wandering down South Street and getting dinner at Cava (another favorite of ours we first tried on our trip to D.C.), we ended the evening at Comedy Sportz Philadelphia. Sam and I are regulars at Comedy Sportz in Milwaukee, so we were excited to check out the Philadelphia version and introduce Shannon to Comedy Sportz!
Day four brought us once again back into the city to check out another of Philly’s major museums: the National Constitution Center. This museum is fittingly just across the lawn from Independence Hall and celebrates the creation and purpose of the United States Constitution.
This was also where I purchased who we now call “Baby Ben,” a small Ben Franklin finger puppet that accompanied on the rest of our trip. Philadelphia is a little obsessed with Ben Franklin, so he seemed to be a fitting souvenir for the trip. He now resides on our fridge in Milwaukee as a reminder of our love of Philly!
Our dessert that night was another Philly classic: Franklin Fountain. An old fashioned soda shop, Franklin Fountain features several different homemade ice creams and fun ice cream drinks.
We then meandered over to Penn’s Landing, intending to spend a few hours hanging out by the river. However, a storm rolled in and they closed down the landing for safety reasons. So, we took a quick photo with the Ben Franklin bridge, and headed back out into the suburbs.
What was supposed to be our final day in Philly (again, we’ll get to the travel chaos later) started not with a train trip Center City, but instead with a drive out to Belmont Plateau.
We’d all seen photos of Belmont Plateau before this, but none of us had ever stopped by before. Though the park itself consisted of just a few trees and a baseball diamond, it provided a great look at the Philly skyline in the distance. We grabbed lunch from Wawa and had a picnic looking out at the Philly skyline in the distance.
Of course we couldn’t go an entire day without taking the train to Center City, so after our picnic we took a train to Suburban station and walked over to the Rocky Steps, another iconic Philly landmark. It was super hot, so rather than running the steps ourselves we sat next to a fountain watching other crazy tourists run up the steps like Rocky before moving on.
After taking one last touristy photo in front of the LOVE statue, we grabbed a train across Philly to our final stop of the night.
Penn’s Landing may have been a fail the night before, but luckily there was no storm to keep us away this night!
We found a nice table to hunker down at and grabbed food and drinks from the nearby food stalls. I was able to try Crab Fries from Chickie and Pete’s for the first time (AMAZING) and we indulged in more Franklin’s Fountain ice cream from their stand on the landing.
On (what was supposed to be) our final morning Shannon headed off to work and Sam and I headed back into Center City for a little last exploring.
Our main area of exploration that day was the Rittenhouse neighborhood. Though we’d quickly walked through the area several times throughout the weekend, we’d never had time to just stop and enjoy the park or any of the shops. We wandered into a few bookshops, grabbed a final meal at Reading Terminal Market, before heading back out to Shannon’s apartment to pack up and head to the airport that night.
Or so we thought. Our flight was originally intended to leave at 8 p.m. that evening. While eating dinner with Shannon and getting ready to leave for the airport, we received notification that our flight was delayed. Then, shortly later, it was cancelled.
Remember earlier when I mentioned we’ve had trouble with those small planes? Being so small, they don’t handle weather well. If there is any inclement weather in the area, they usually can’t fly. In this case, it turned out, most of the flights would end up grounded that night. There were tornados and a thunderstorm in the area, so the next flight we could catch wasn’t until the following day at noon.
This was my first ever actual cancelled flight. Another milestone for the trip, I guess? Since then, we’ve dealt with plenty of delays, and several cancellations, so we’ve gotten better at dealing with the chaos. But, of course, it’s never fun.
So, we rebooked our flight, crashed for another night at Shannon’s, and made our way to the airport early the following morning to avoid some of the rush hour traffic on the train.
Not quite the trip ending we were intending, but a great first experience in Philly regardless!
