Philadelphia Logistics and the famous food

Philly Skyline on  a hazy day.
Riverlink Ferry in foreground

I'm going to do a few posts on Philadelphia. I'm going to consolidate what I can to do as few as possible. There is so much to see whether you are a fan of history, art, or attractions, you can't see it all in  a week.

First off, logistics

Philly is a little less than five hours from North Attleboro, MA. We stayed in Cherry Hill, NJ about 7 miles from downtown. This way we spent $70/night instead of $250. We stayed at a Days Inn. The motel was fairly inexpensive, had free breakfast, a small pool and free internet. On the downside, it wasn't the cleanest Days Inn ever. I did leave a note after the first night asking the maid to change the bedspread that had stains on it, which she did.

Of course, being outside the city meant we had to drive in. We had to cross the Delaware River on the Ben Franklin Bridge everyday. There was a five dollar toll on the way in, but free on the way out. To my shock every morning, there wasn't any traffic. I thought for sure there would be back up at the toll, but there never was. After going over the bridge, you are only a mile or so from Independence Hall. We parked every day at Independence Hall Garage. Cost was $22 a day. There was an early bird fair of $14 if you left by 6 pm, but we only left early once. I despise paying for parking, however, leaving the car in the garage all day was convenient, and we knew downtown is a bitch to park in anyway.

As I said, we parked at the garage at Independence Hall Vistor Center. It is directly under the V.C. This is a great place to start a trip. You can get pamphlets of all the attractions. There are tours that start from there including bus tours, Segway tours, carriage rides and walking tours. There are many types of walking tours from Ranger walks, ghost tours, pub crawls, etc...

To get around the city you have a ton of options. You could use public buses. There is also a public bus system called the Philly Phlash. This drops you at the major sites in Philly. An inexpensive option, all day passes where you jump on and off are five dollars, or two dollars for a single ride. There are also many companies that run narrated tours. These buses aren't cheap, but they will tell you a lot. The narrators are extremely knowledgeable. They never stop telling you about the city. Of course, other options are taxi and Uber, and subway.

One thing to note almost everything you want to see in the city is open from 10-5. This isn't a lot of time. Most of the tourist buses leave Independence Hall for their last run of the day at 5 pm. They will pick you up on that last run but they don't keep coming every 20 minutes like they do throughout the day. There are obvious exceptions such as ghost walks don't start until 7-7:30 pm. The Museum of Art is open until 7 pm on Wednesdays. However, for the most part, you have to cram in most of your fun in those seven hours. This made planning a little difficult. Some things such as the zoo take a few hours. Starting the day at the zoo, doesn't leave many free hours in the afternoon.

Battleship New Jersey is part of
the Philly Pass

Philly Pass-

We bought a Philly Pass. This is a one time fee to go see attractions. You pay the fee for the pass (which looks like a credit card). This will get you into 40 different attractions.  You can get a 1,2,3, or 5 day pass. Prices start at $59. We chose to buy a three day pass. The normal price is $109 however, it always seems to be on sale for $89. As I said, there are 40 different attractions to choose. Almost every attraction in the city that is not free is an option. If you go to Philly, I strongly suggest getting a Philly Pass.

 Our three day pass cost us $89 each but we ended going to $235(each) worth of attractions. Although I'll write in detail more, the pass go us into the zoo, aquarium, three art museums, Museum of Science, a ferry ride, a battleship, two different ghost tours, a skyscraper observation deck,  and two days on the sightseeing Big Bus.  We did all of that for $89. It was one hell of a deal. Many of the things I just listed have a regualr ticket price of $20-25. The Big Bus Co costs thirty two, and with the pass we got to ride it two days in a row.

https://www.philadelphiapass.com/En/

Walking-

There is a lot to see. Even if you use transportation you will do a lot of walking. As I mentioned there are ranger lead walking tours, there are ghost tours. The museums are huge and the zoo is large. If you want to see the Battleship NJ, it is a half mile from the ferry landing. So just plan on doing a lot of walking. The bright side is, Philly is one of the best walking cities in America. It is easy to get around. William Penn designed the city. The numbered streets run north to south. The east west streets are named after nature, mostly trees. The areas where tourist want to go are safe. We did have to walk back to our car a couple nights without any issue.  The only real downside is there are a lot of homeless people begging for money. This is a big turnoff for a boy not used to the city. It took me a couple days before it stopped being aggravating. I also had one Buddhist come up to me to give me a prayer card and ask for money, which I promptly gave him his card right back. This happens in all cities, which is what I kept reminding myself

Food-

Philly is famous for food! It is probably a good thing that I don't live there. Before I get to cheesesteaks two paragraphs down, I want to talk about the Reading Terminal Market. This place is halfway between Independence Hall and City Hall. It is the oldest "farmers market" in the country. What it really is, is a giant food court. I expected it to look like Quincy Market in Boston, but it looked more like the shops in Tokyo that I've seen on tv. It is huge. It has any kind of food you'd want from typical burgers and cheesesteaks to ethnic food and bakeries.We went there for lunch once and for supper on two occasions. We only went for lunch the one time because it is so crowded. Everyone that works in the area must go there on their lunch break. It was too crowded for me. At supper time, some of the places close early, but there are still a ton of options. There is half the people there. My three meals were a quesadilla, BBQ pork, and a sandwich at a place called Dinics.

If you look up the Travel Channel best sandwich in America 2013, you will find the pork sandwich at Dinics is the winner. It is a flavored pork with a broccoli sauce on top. Choosing not to pass up the best sandwich in America I ordered it the way it won the award. Glad I tried it, but it was only okay.

Cheesesteak-

Cheesesteak from Campo's with a bite taken out

Yes, Sportsfans, I did eat Philly Cheesesteaks for supper three nights. The two most famous places are Pat's King of Steak and Geno's. They are across the street from each other in South Philly. They are by far the most famous and we tried to go there. We went pretty late in the evening. We couldn't get a parking spot within a half mile because all the commuters were home. We finally gave up after 40 minutes. We never went back.

All is not lost, I researched best cheesesteaks in Philly before I left for vaca. No matter what list you find we went to three spots that all are in the top five best places. Jim's South Street consistently wins the top honor (my favorite of the three but Laurie thought it was too greasy). We also went to Sonny's and Campos. They are on the same block and they have a friendly competition with each other. The cheese that comes on  a Philly Cheesesteak is cheese whiz unless you order it with American.  I'm happy to say the locals I talked to love the three places we went and think Geno's and Pat's are over rated. It's not to say I'm happy I didn't go to those places, but I'm happy I got to eat where the locals eat.

More posts to come