Cam and I love to travel. It doesn’t even have to be anywhere far, but we love to explore new towns. Normally what we do is find a spot to stay right in the heart of the city so that we can walk everywhere. When I say we walk everywhere, I literally mean that. I am talking between 8-12 miles/day. So I say travel instead of vacation because we are always so exhausted when we get back! I’m sure many of you can relate as I have heard so many times people needing a vacation from their vacation!
Going to Philly was a last minute decision. Like a 7 days before we leave for Philly decision. We looked up the city and saw it was about a 7 hour drive from Cary. It looked like it had plenty to do and we had never been to Pennsylvania. Done, Philly here we come!
Day 1
Our original 7 hour drive really turned into a little over 9 hours. We also discovered how much we dislike tolls! We have decided flying is so worth the extra money! Needless to say I drank a lot of coffee that day.
We got to Philly around 7PM, got checked in and headed out to explore the city. We unfortunately could not get a reasonable hotel right in the city but we found one close enough where we could Uber/Lyft in everyday. We got dropped off at Independence Hall which is in Old City Philadelphia. We came up on Sonny’s Famous Steaks and knew we had to get a cheesesteak. We were not disappointed. Cam got cheese whiz on his and it was so good! After dinner we headed down to Penn’s Landing to walk along the Delaware River. We were able to get some great views of the Ben Franklin Bridge. We ended the night getting shakes from The Franklin Fountain. If your ever in the city this place was amazing with tons of flavor options.
Day 2
This was our first full day in Philly which meant getting dropped off in the heart and exploring everything the city has to offer. We heard from a lot of friends that the Hop-On Hop-Off tour was great. Plus this gave us transportation for the entire day to different parts of the city. Our first stop off the tour was to the One Liberty Observation Deck to get 360 degree views of the city 57 stories high. Definitely worth the trip up. There is no time limit to how long you can stay, and they have a variety of games so that you can sit and enjoy the views.
Our next stop was down Antiques Row on Pine Street. We were actually pretty disappointed with this street. There weren’t many shops and the shops that were there we didn’t consider antique. However, we did find great coffee at Good Karma Cafe. Really neat atmosphere and quality coffee. I got an Iced Brown Bear which was basically a caramel mocha.
We continued walking and came across maybe one of my favorite stops of the trip. Pennsylvania Hospital. I’m sure not what most of you were thinking. Being a nurse I am always interested to see different hospitals. Pennsylvania Hospital is not just any hospital though, it was the FIRST hospital built in America. Founded in 1751 by Ben Franklin and Thomas Bond. From the stories I have heard it is amazing to think how far we have come in medicine but also how much we still have to learn and discover.
We then headed to South Street which had Octoberfest going on. We hit a couple shops but weren’t to impressed with this part of town. Plenty of eateries and shops just not our type. After South Street we hopped back on the bus and headed to our favorite stop of the day: Reading Market Terminal. A must if your in Philly. Our favorite stop and we ended up going twice during our trip. Reading Market (pronounced Redding) is a huge market full of restaurants, bakeries, groceries, butchers, a general store and a variety of other vendors. The options are endless. We split a roast pork sandwich from DeNic’s. The line around this place was huge and was voted best sandwich in America. Juicy pork topped with melted provolone and sweet peppers. This sandwich was delicious. After DeNic’s we found the other huge line for Beiler’s Doughnuts. We have never had a better doughnut. They had probably 50 different types. I got the Maple Nut Cream and Boston Cream doughnuts and Cam got the Cookies and Cream and Banana Cream doughnuts. Seriously if you are in Philly get yourself to Reading Market, I promise you wont regret it!.
After eating lunch we headed out to explore more of the city. One of our favorite sites in Philadelphia is City Hall. Really amazing architecture and its huge! We also went to Love Park to see the famous LOVE statue. After that we caught the bus again so that we could do the tour the entire way through. Once we made it all the way through we got off at Ben Franklin’s burial site. Ben Franklin has such a huge footprint in the history of Philadelphia but more important on the United States so it was really neat to learn more about such a profound figure while in Philly. Our last stop of the night before dinner was down Elfreth’s Alley. This Alley is our nations oldest residential street dating back to 1702.
We decided to try Han Dynasty for dinner. Definitely good Chinese food; however, Cam and I both overestimated our heat tolerance! After dinner we went to Franklin Fountain again for ice cream which we enjoyed. Then we took an Uber back to the hotel to rest from this long but really awesome day!
To avoid an extremely long post look for Day 3 and Day 4 in the next couple days!
