Philadelphia: A Fun Day Trip from NYC

GUEST POST

Ena is our first guest poster here on DatesintheStates.com. She wanted to share with us her story of her fun day trip from NYC to Philly. Let’s all give her a warm welcome!

Catch her on Instagram @capcitygal where she posts about gorgeous cities and  her travel/lifestyle experiences.

My name is Ena and I work in NYC focusing on energy efficiency and sustainability for a major corporation. My interests are in social impact and economic development and at my core, I’m a hopeless romantic, a traveler filled with wanderlust and a potential rat-race escapee.

I created my travel and lifestyle blog, Musings and Adventures, in January 2018 because I have always wanted to chronicle my travels in addition to travelling sustainably and with purpose. My blog is also an outlet to living in the concrete jungle, which I absolutely love, but can be stressful. In addition, I began a healthy eating lifestyle 2 years ago and blogged about my journey and the foods I cut out thus far.

Philadelphia: A Fun Day trip from New York City

Check out the fun stops Ena made on her journey with Peter Pan Bus Lines from NYC to Philly and her reviews about each place!

The Reading Terminal Market: At Dawn

The Reading Terminal Market is right by the bus terminal, not far from Chinatown. We enter because we are starved at this point. On this early Saturday morning, it is very crowded with long lines everywhere.

We browse the various stores of fresh meat, fish, bakeries and products before ordering pancakes, eggs and turkey bacon from a Pennsylvania Dutch spot. Take note, pancakes are called “shortcakes” here and the glob of “butter” that was piled onto my pancakes almost put me off from eating it. I eat healthy and I still take small amounts of butter, but this quantity screamed angina to me. I ate the pancakes dry for health sake.

After our meal, we amble over to Bee Natural for organic honey from an actual beekeeper. He sells organic honey products from lip balms and lotions to candles and natural honey still with its honeycomb in tact. I’d never seen that before and it was fascinating to me. We purchase a jar of natural honey for $13 (after a delicious taste test) and you can tell the difference between this natural product and the store bought honey we see every day.

City Hall: 8:30 am

After the Terminal, we amble along and somehow find ourselves at City Hall, Penn Square. It’s a beautiful masonry structure in Centre Square designed to be the world’s tallest building, but was surpassed by the Washington Monument, DC and the Eiffel Tower, Paris. It has 700 rooms and is the world’s largest municipal building. It’s a National Historic Landmark and there is an Observation Deck at the base of the William Penn statue atop the building.

Tours of the building are available on weekdays during office hours so be sure to plan accordingly.

Masonic Temple: 8:45 am

This historic structure is right across from City Hall and is amazing to see up close. Masonic Grand Lodge meetings are still held here and it also houses the Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania which receives thousands of visitors a year.

I’ve been fascinated by Masonic tales ever since I read Da Vinci’s Code in college and I researched and went deeper into its Scottish history. I discovered it was founded by actual masons and learned how it crossed over into the New World with its rites and rumored questionable activities.

It is said that the ceremonial gavel used by the Grandmaster on the day the cornerstone was leveled is the same gavel used by George Washington in leveling the cornerstone of the Capitol. How symbolic! Isn’t it rumored that Washington and a number of the Founding Fathers were Freemasons?

Independence Visitor’s Centre: 11:30 am

My list was full of sights to see in the Historic District and I wanted to see a couple more before leaving so off we walked from Arch Street south to Market and 6^th Street for the Visitor’s Centre. This should be everyone’s first stop in the Historic District for ideas of where to go and what to do. The staff at the front desk will give you walking maps (which you need, trust me) and tell you what to see if your clueless. You can also schedule tours here for Independence Hall and other major tourist stops, too.

We scheduled a free tour of Independence Hall and bought tickets for the African-American Museum for $14 apiece, the National Constitution Center and the Museum of the American Revolution. We purchased the tickets for the latter two sites at a discount for $29 apiece.

*The Liberty Bell is right opposite the Visitor’s Centre, but the line was criminally long and I wasn’t mentally or otherwise prepared to queue for over an hour. This will be seen another time.*

African-American Museum: 11:45 am

The African-American Museum (AA Museum) is located on Arch Street not far from the Visitor’s Centre and across the street from the Constitution Centre, with the Federal Reserve Bank between them. We go in and browse its three different levels of history and art. The interactive history is amazing as it shows re-enactments of enslaved Africans fighting for their freedom and the thriving free Black population in Philadelphia before and after Emancipation.

A lot of these free Black individuals are enshrined in Philadelphia history and many people like me don’t realize that. There are posters of famous Black folk through the decades (Will Smith is from West Philadelphia, never forget) as well as drawings and paintings from artists. It’s really interesting and I highly recommend this to every one visiting Philly for the first time.

National Constitution Centre: 12:30 pm

We exited from the AA Museum and cross the road to the National Constitution Centre (NCC). It is a large, well-lit modern building with even more history of the United States and her arms of government. It’s family-friendly with interactive talks and artifacts preserved over the centuries.

There are miniature replicas of the Capitol and White House. These replicas looked as though they could have been 3D printed! It was amazing the details of these replicas.

Independence Hall: 1:45 pm

It’s time for our free tour that we scheduled at the Vistor Centre and we have to arrive at the security checkpoint on Chestnut Street. It is bitterly cold, but sunny and I’m grateful for my ear muffs and gloves! If you are doing this trip in the winter, come prepared for the cold!

Once the tour began, we were ushered into an exact replica of Congress Hall after the Revolution when there were just 16 states. Independence Hall has its own location in the old City Hall building and is the oldest capital building in the country. Actually, Federal Hall in New York City is the first, but the original building did not survive the centuries. All of this was told to us in a 20 minute orientation. Following the orientation, we went upstairs to various rooms of the building where the Secretary’s Room, East and West Wings are located to continue the tour.

Museum of the American Revolution: 2:30 pm

The Museum of the American Revolution (MOAR) is our last paid sight to see and we opt to do this before having lunch. We enter a cinema-like room for a 17-minute video orientation of the history of America. It’s heartening to see real history of how this nation came to be and the different groups of people that helped build it: Native people, enslaved Africans, Europeans…

After the video, we go through numerous galleries of maps, historical artifact and biographies of the main players in the Revolution: the Redcoats and the American Army fighting them. Did you know that certain Native tribes aligned with the British and several with the fighting American army? I knew some of this, but not how this discord tribe pits against each other for generations. Also present were the biographies of brave women, Native Americans, enslaved people and Abolitionists that all struggled to have their voices heard in the fight for equality and freedom.

We spent over an hour here reading and watching historical re-enactments and I learned so much that I never knew before visiting. I highly recommend this museum to everyone regardless of your love for history or not. It shows just how much blood, sweat and tears went into building this great nation of ours.

 

After the MOAR, we are ravenous and went on a search for Amada, a vegetarian restaurant that I had found out about before arriving. We find it, but are told that served food starts at 5pm, alas, it was past 3! We absolutely couldn’t wait till 5 so headed off in search of another restaurant.

We eventually came upon Han Dynasty around 4pm on Chestnut and 2nd.  I’ve been to a Han Dynasty in the Upper West Side of New York City so I’m familiar with them. I chose this restaurant because I  have a love for Asian cuisine. Their food is really spicy (which I love and can handle) and their abundance of fish and shrimp is amazing. We are a meatless family. I put my mum on my meatless/pescatarian/plant-based nutrition so at every restaurant or eatery we frequent has to have these menu options. I also love to cook, so many of my meals incorporate these items too.

After eating, we amble into Old City, aptly named because of its historic English mixed-use structures and English taverns. I feel very nostalgic because I grew up in England and if I block my ears to American accents, I can be fooled into thinking I’m somewhere in London or on the streets of Cambridge or Manchester. This area has beautiful street art as shown in the photo below. I lost all feeling in my fingers because I had my gloves off to enable picture taking, but it was so worth it.

On our way out, we walked back to city centers’ Starbuck’s for warmth and to while away 30 more minutes before our bus picks us up to head back to New York City. The bus was leaving from the station in Chinatown about 8pm and we head there after our lattes, checked in and fell promptly asleep once the bus entered onto the highway.

In conclusion:

I highly recommend Philadelphia as a day trip or stay-cation within the Northeast. Now that I have a bit of my bearings, I will return in warmer weather to see places that were too cold for us to visit, such as the Seaport Museum. We have the same thing in New York City and I blog about it as one of the unmissable NYC experiences that are not conventional tourist spots (http://musingsandadventures.com/2018/02/04/10-unmissable-nyc-experiences/).