A Weekend In Philadelphia
What brought me to Philadelphia? The promise of American history embedding its streets, the allure of mouth-watering cheese steaks, and of course the popular TV show It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Throw in a great flight deal and I was sold for spending a weekend in Philly. And I must say, the city definitely delivered on my expectations! Here is a weekend guide to experiencing the best of Philadelphia.
Friday
Our flight touched down in Philadelphia at 9:55pm, so our mission for the night was getting to our hostel and finding some dinner and drinks. Getting around in Philly is easy with the train system they have. One 40-minute train ride and 8 blocks of walking later we arrived at Apple Hostels. Our hostel was close to a hoppin’ bar scene, so we walked one block over to check it out. But first we needed food! Since it was so late, a lot of the bars stopped serving food. One of the bouncers recommended a cheese steak place around the corner and told us we could bring our food back to the bar! So we headed to Philly’s Gourmet Steaks. It doesn’t seem like much on the outside, but they have so much to offer on the inside! You order your sandwich at the counter, and their drink selection is like what you’d see at a convenience store. You can pick soda, water, wine, you name it! There’s also a club in the basement. Although we didn’t venture into the club, we grabbed some Philly cheese steaks and fries and went back to the bar we discovered. The Philly cheese steaks were so good! The cheese was perfectly melted. The fries were okay – they could have used some seasoning. If you find yourself at this cheesesteak shop I’d recommend just sticking with the cheesesteak sandwich – it’s very filling on its own.
Saturday
On our first day in Philly we went to the landmark this city is most famous for: the Liberty Bell. Before we joined the semi-long line to get inside, we took a look at the outdoor exhibit, which highlights the realities and hardships of slavery in American history. While I’m sure what they had only scratches the surface on slavery in America, it was refreshing for such an iconic landmark to be surrounded by reminders that Liberty and justice for all didn’t apply to everyone. To some degree it still doesn’t, but that’s another conversation for another day.
After exploring the outdoor exhibit, we got in line to see the bell. The line moved fairly quickly, and soon enough we were inside without having to pay for admission. Once inside, the first thing you see is a plethora of artifacts and boards that encompass the history of the bell, from its original use and how it got its crack to how the bell has been celebrated and preserved over the years. There was a lot of history there that was new to me – such as the Liberty bell being toured around the US.
The final section of the history area included details about the women’s suffrage movement – yet another reminder that Liberty and justice for all originally only applied to Liberty and justice for white straight cisgender men. There were pieces of history in there that I haven’t learned before as well. Did you know that in the 1800s, women were allowed to own property until they were married? Then they basically gave over their rights to their husband. Now you do!
Finally, it was time to see the Liberty bell! I can’t speak for how crowd control was before the pandemic, but they did a good job of keeping groups distanced from each other and making sure everyone got a chance to see the bell up close and get pictures without having to fight 50 other people trying to get the same picture. Also, they did a good job at actually making sure people kept their masks on – even for pictures.
After we got our pictures with the bell, our next destination was Reading Terminal Market, one of the biggest and oldest farmers markets in the US! We ran into quite a few landmarks on the way there. We walked down Market Street, which had a bunch of shops lining the street. This street reminded me a lot of the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. At the end of the street is the massive and beautiful city hall, which looks like it was once an old cathedral. We crossed the street to another gorgeous church, which is still used as a church to this day. This little section of Philadelphia felt very European to me! Across the street from the church is John F Kennedy Plaza, which has the famous Love sculpture and a nice fountain. After venturing over there to check the area out, we finally got back on track and arrived at Reading Terminal Market with the realization that Philly is an extremely walkable city.
I can easily understand why RTM is so popular. There were so many food vendors, a few clothing vendors, and an actual market section with fruits and veggies in the middle. Not to mention a few fish markets. While my boyfriend was using the restroom, a Filipino restaurant called Tampayen caught my eye. They sell Ube fries and had a delicious-looking Taro drink. We caved and tried them – they were pretty good! After taking in more of what RTM has to offer and taking way too long to decide where to eat, we settled on some lunch and dessert. Lunch was from Roast Beef place, which we chose because numerous articles/bloggers called this the best sandwich in America. We went to a whoopee pie place that won some city awards for best whoopee pies and grabbed some red velvet and cookies n creme pies. We also saw a bakery near the entrance that had cute little cakes – we split a carrot cake. Finally I was craving lemonade for whatever reason, and found some at Dutch Eating Place. There was a long wait for the food, so thank goodness I just needed a drink there! The roast beef sandwich was pretty good, but definitely not the best sandwich in America. The desserts and lemonade, on the other hand, were amazing!
Next up on my to-see list was Elfreth’s Alley, which has homes and businesses built as early as 1720! On our way there, we walked through Chinatown and saw the infamous Friendship Arch. If we weren’t stuffed from lunch we definitely would have stopped at a dumpling or bubble tea store! There were so many in the area. After making our way through Chinatown, we found the small cobblestone street lined with the most adorable homes – yep, we made it to Elfreth’s Alley! The homes have been preserved extremely well over the years, and people live in them to this day. To protect the privacy of the residents, the street is only open to tourists during the day, and cars are only allowed for unloading. Which makes this alley perfect for getting pictures! I could have stayed in the alley admiring the homes for hours, but alas we had more to see – and the residents might have been a little weirded out!
Following our visit to Elfreth’s Alley was a tour of Betsy Ross’s house. It’s not a must-see in my opinion, but it’s worth a visit if you’re in the area and have an hour to kill! The museum has a $7 admission fee, which was worth it considering there was a lot to learn about Betsy Ross’s history that goes beyond what was taught in the typical American history curriculum. Also, the bottom floor had a brief history of domesticated life in the 1800s. For example, we learned that back in the day hot chocolate was commonly served as breakfast. Just hot chocolate. No eggs, toast, etc. I may or may not have used that as justification to drink hot chocolate occasionally for breakfast ever since learning this! We additionally learned about the life of a washerwoman in the 1800s – it was an extremely tedious and physically demanding job. Definitely not a job I would want in that time period!
We brought our newfound appreciation of modern washers and dryers over to the riverside area of Philly. We ultimately ended up hanging out for a bit in the beer garden of Cherry Street Pier, which has been repurposed into an art-centered market. Most of the booths were closed when we arrived, but we thoroughly enjoyed the beers, cocktails, and views from the beer garden. We ended our day at Paddy’s Old City Pub, which is the pub that inspired Paddy’s Irish Pub in It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. The bar is much smaller than the one in the TV show, but it definitely had that older bar charm. The walls were lined with memorabilia with regulars and old celebrities. One of the photos was of the bar owner with the cast of It’s Always Sunny! I ordered a citywide special per our hostel’s recommendation, which is a Yuengling beer served with a whiskey or bourbon shot. I was okay with only having that once!
When we returned to our hostel, they were gearing up for a free ghost tour! We tagged along and learned about some of Philly’s historical buildings with a spooky twist. We chased down the ghost stories with craft beers in the Fishtown district, which is an up-and-coming bar and restaurant area in northeast Philly. There were a lot of bars to choose from, but we spent our night at Barcade playing arcade games and enjoying the patio space. Our drunk food of choice at the end of the night was dumplings with an American twist from Humpty Dumpling’s. We each got buffalo chicken and cheese steak dumplings – both equally delicious! We ended up walking a half hour home because the Uber’s and Lyfts were scarce and the subway was closed, and we didn’t feel unsafe at all. Not sure if I’d do that walk alone, but it was nice with someone else. We needed to burn off some calories from lunch anyway!
Sunday
We spent most of our last day in south Philly, which was a really fun area of the city! Our first stop was at the intersection of the two most popular cheesesteak restaurants, Geno’s Steaks and Pat’s King of Steaks. Michael ordered a cheesesteak from Geno’s, and I ordered one from Pat’s so we could try both! The final verdict? We thought Pat’s was the best. However, they were both AMAZING. You can’t go wrong either way! The plan was to see the Philadelphia Magic Garden next, but they didn’t have any tickets available for the next few hours – lesson learned: buy tickets for the garden at least a day in advance. So we went back to city center before continuing our journey in South Philly to visit the American Revolution museum. It cost $20ish for admission, but it was a pretty big museum with lots of artifacts and information! We saw a lot of neat artifacts, including George Washington’s war tent. We had to cut our time a little short to head to Philadelphia Magic Garden. This area is a maze of recycled art and glass that is very reminiscent of Park Güell in Barcelona! It was $15 to enter and well worth it! Every corner was beautiful. The artist was big on finding extraordinary in the ordinary things, and liked to upcycle “trash” into art. This artist played in important role in south Philly’s history, and as a result you can see his art on random walls of the neighborhood, which really adds to the quirkiness of south Philly! Our final stop in Philly was at Brauhaus Schmitz, a biergarten that caught our eye. The exterior looked like it came straight from Germany, and they had a really cute street patio. They only served beer from Germany, which was really fun for us, since we’ve both been to Germany before and loved the beer there.
Map of Locations
Philly was way better than I expected it to be! The city is rich with history, which is reflected not only in the various museums but also in the city’s architecture. It is an extremely walkable city with quirky parts of town you wouldn’t expect from one of the original cities of the United States. Philly is the perfect weekend trip for history lovers and foodies alike! For a map of all the places we went to (and would have gone to if we had more time), check out this link: https://goo.gl/maps/Eg3Td3oA3w9qgPZaA
