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| Once Upon a Nation Bench |
I have already wrote about most of the historical free things in Philly such as the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. I won't repeat them in this post.
Once Upon a Nation Benches
I had read about these when looking up free things to do in Philly. What they are, are benches that a storyteller simply tells you story. You sit down and an actor tells a story that lasts about five minutes. The story teller doesn't just sit there. They sort of act out the scene. Many of them are actors or young people with a drama background.
The stories are historical and give you inside information that you may not have ever heard. For instance in Jefferson Davis's house a free black lady was "hired" out to be a slave in his house. This was a rouse because she was a spy. She reported back to her friend and "pretend master". It wasn't until the very last day of the Civil War that Jeff Davis declared he thought there was a spy in in his house. It's unknown stories like this you will learn about at the benches.
There are 13 benches in Philly. Check the days and times they are open. They change throughout the summer. While we were thee in late August, the storytellers were only at the benches Fri/Sat 10-4. If you plan on going to many of them, a storyteller can give you a flag. For each story they tell you, you can get a star to put on the flag. If you go to ten benches or more you can get a free ride on the carousel in Franklin Square.
We knew we were not going to go to Franklin Square even if we got to ten benches. Yet, we were having so much fun chasing stories we got a flag. We ended up hearing nine stories on Friday afternoon before they closed at 4 pm.. Our original plan was to go to the National Liberty Museum on Friday but we were having so much fun going to the benches that we blew it off. If you take a trip to Philly, I strongly recommend you check the times the benches are open. A really fun and free experience.
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| Washed out photo of the Rocky Statue GRRR!!!!!! |
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| Running up the Rocky stairs |
One of the most popular things to do in Philly is to run up the Rocky steps from the climax of his training scenes. These steps are actually at the Museum of Art. Of course, we went there and I recreated the scene along with scores of other people doing the same thing. At the top we all throw our hands in the air just as the Rock did. I am/was still having trouble walking so I gingerly jogged up the stairs. Laurie who was at the top took pictures.
Near the bottom of the steps is a real statue of Rocky Balboa. There is a continuous line to get a picture of yourself with him. It is damn near impossible to get a picture of the statue with no one next to it.
For whatever reason, my camera started to wash out pictures that day. I don't know why, but any view with sky in the background even with my back to the sun was washed out. This really sucked because the photo of yourself with Rocky is certainly a tourist right of passage.
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| Like cheesesteak, raising your arms is a rite of passage in Philly |
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| Poe House |
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| A Black Cat in the cellar |
About a mile from the other touristy places is a house that Edgar Allen Poe lived in for seven years. He wrote a couple of famous pieces there. It is a National Historic site, thus it is free. We rode our bikes there to cut down on walking. It is eight or nine city blocks from the parking garage. It is only open a few days a week to visitors and closed from 12-1 pm for lunch. The Poe house was actually the first thing we did in Philly. We arrived on Sunday and it was going to be closed most of the weekdays so we hit it before going anywhere else.
The house is pretty cool. You can go down cellar which is a little creepy (in a cool way) since Poe was a few stories about basements and underground crimes. That was my favorite room. There is another room called the "reading room" where you can read Poe's works. A ranger put on a cd for us of "The Raven" spoken by creepy voiced Christopher Walken.
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| Fountain in Franklin Square Carousel to the left, Mini golf to the right |
There are a few city squares in Philly. This one is not far from the Poe house. It was a warm day and we got ice cream and a soda here. It is a small park. There is a fountain and benches. For a fee there is also the aforementioned carousel and mini golf. It is a nice little park in downtown Philly
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| Quickly relaxing on a hammock |
Penn Landing is where the Riverlink Ferry docks. It is a scenic waterfront spot. They have free movie nights there on a large screen and there is a stage for bands. There is also a ferris wheel and a roller skating rink. Like Franklin Square it costs a few dollars to do these things, but it is nice for people that live in the city and need a break.
Spruce Street Harbor Park is adjacent to Penn Landing and I really don't know where one ends and the other starts. There are food vendors and little kid rides. The highlight is a bunch of free hammocks to lie on. They are set up anywhere two trees are close enough to hang one. I only spent a few minutes at Spruce Street because of time constraints, but it is a cool place to chill especially with small children.
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| Irish Monument and my partially Irish best friend |
Almost across the street from Spruce Street is a city park with monuments dedicated to two wars and two nations of immigrants.
As a fan of monuments who would like to see them before being taken down, we searched them out. Laurie who is part Irish wanted a picture of herself near the Irish Monument. The monument represents the hardships and starvation of the Irish during the potato famine. There is a lot of history surrounding it.
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| Korean War Memorial |
Korean War and Vietnam Memorials are a short distance away. They are dedicated to the Philadelphia's Vets of these wars. I liked the Korean monument better. It was full of all kinds of facts and figures and a timeline. Wish I had more time to read it all.
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