Philadelphia Dining Round-Up

The Reading Terminal Market was located very close to our hotel, which we didn't realize until the day before we left town.  Our visit visit here was pretty close to closing time and there may have been some Hangry feelings from Wifey.  

I was hungry - no crepe photo taken

Our second visit to the market was in the morning and we purchased several donuts and Hubby some Pad Thai for 'lunch'.  

Another morning we visited Federal Donuts which was located in the first floor lobby of our hotel.  The donuts were good, but not spectacular and definitely overpriced.

Near the Philly Cheesesteak restaurants was a cute cannoli joint.  Cannoli King also served gelato as well as individual tiramisu.  The creativity and diversity of their cannoli options was impressive.

Reese's Cannoli and Chocolate Gelato

Our first day in Philadelphia we hadn't learned the area very well and Wifey ended up Hangry come nighttime.  Its hard to tell from this photo, but our hotel room literally looks down on a nearby Shake Shack so she may have enjoyed a burger and shake for dinner.  Hypothetically.  Sometimes travel is just about getting in the calories to explore another day more than the best local experiences.  

 

Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Rocky Steps

For Hubby's actual birthday (though we're posting this out of sync) we were pretty tired and spent the day mostly chilling about the city.  Hubby woke up with a bit of a headache.

We took the subway over to Independence Park where the Liberty Bell is on display.  It was rough.

We first went to see the Liberty Bell! Visiting the Liberty bell is free and no ticket is required, just the patience to make it through security.  

After viewing the liberty bell and some colocated exhibits about its history we walked over to the visitors center ISO a restroom.  Success!  

painted on the wall in the visitors center

While at the visitors center we chatted with a very helpful park ranger (they're the best!) who explained the protocol for visiting Independence Hall.  Online and in the nearby signage it indicates that tickets are required to visit and these must be obtained at recreation.gov.  When wifey tried to obtain tickets, however, they were unavailable. 

Apparently tickets are only required on holiday weekends and during the busy season (spring-fall).  In the winter you can just walk up, go through security, and visit!  Luckily by this time Hubby's headache had ameliorated and we were up for the visit.  

Legislature

Courtroom

Independence Hall was the Pennsylvania center of government and is where the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were debated and adopted by the US Founding Fathers.  Every 30 minutes a ranger guided tour was offered and we greatly enjoyed learning from our energetic tour guide.  

After Independence Hall we went south via Subway for a Philly Cheesesteak.  Wifey had a bagel she had bought before leaving the hotel and stashed in our backpack!

 

Post lunch we figured out the city bus system and headed up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to find te Rocky Statue and run the famous 72 steps from the movie Rocky!

view from the top of the steps

Several of the shops we've visited require cash payment or charge a fee for using a CC.  We made a quick stop at a local ATM to replenish our cash reserves.  The experience was interesting as the ATM itself was located inside essentially the bank lobby which was locked.  You could, however, access the lobby and thus the ATM by scanning your ATM card at the lobby door.  

Wifey didn't make official plans for a Birthday Dinner which probably turned out to be a mistake as we called several decent restaurants last minute and all were not accepting walk-ins.  We ended up at a fast-food build your own pasta place near our hotel.  The food was good and we were tired!  

Happy Birthday, Hubby!

Philly Cheese Steaks

The one constant on Hubby's bucket list is to travel to Philadelphia and experience authentic Philly Cheesesteaks!  Wifey planned this trip with the express goal of making that happen and here is the story of our experiences doing so:

Over our time in Philadelphia, Hubby tried 4 different Philly Cheese Steaks!  Wifey tried exactly 0.  Research told us the main competitors for Cheese Steaks were Genos and Pats.  We started our adventure randomly with Geno's Steaks within a couple hours of arrival in Philly!  (stop one was of course to attempt (and succeed! at early check in at our hotel).

For this first visit, we had not yet learned to navigate the Philadelphia city bus system despite having a 3 day transit pass so we walked.  It was about a mile and a half south from our hotel, which sounded easier than it was.  Along the way we got to see a bit of south Philly including a walk through the Italian Market.  At long last we arrived, and began reading the signage to figure out how and where to order!  

Cheesesteaks are ordered at one window (and paid for in cash only).  A bit further down the building, you can order drinks and fries (also cash only).  We ordered a Philly Cheesesteak wit onions and cheese whiz and a cup of cheese fries.  

Our food came out relative promptly, we found a seat in the sun (it was a bit cool) and dug in!  Hubby to the cheesesteak and Wifey to the cheese fries.  

Don't we look happy and full!?

Our next Philly Cheesesteak experience was Pat's King of Steaks which is literally across the (diagonal) street from Genos.  We talked to our hotel and procured access to their Canopy Bikes! This made the trip to Pat's much easier!  Also a quick note - google maps has bicycle directions available now which were clutch in a town that actually has quite a few bicycle lanes!

Pat's is slightly more expensive than Genos (about $1 more per steak) but per Hubby includes more meat and is thus worth it.  From here we visited Pat's exclusively with Hubby trying each of their Philly Cheesesteak versions (with mushrooms and without) (with relish and without) (with onions and without) etc.  The one thing they all had in common?  Cheese Whiz! 

Team Relish for the Win!

View of Geno's from Pats.

View of Pat's from Geno's

NYC in a Whirlwind

This week we are traveling to celebrate Hubby's 40th Birthday!  We'll be spending one day in NYC and the rest of the week in Philadelphia taking a tour of Philly Cheese steaks!  

As we descended to Laguardia, Wifey caught a couple good shots of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty! 

At the airport - 

Our first goal upon arriving in NYC was to transport from Laguardia over to our hotel, The Conrad just south of central park and hope we were able to get an early check-in.  We ended up arriving at the hotel and getting checked in around 11:00 am!  Best part of this is that we can now spend the rest of the day touring without our luggage and work backpacks weighing us down! 

The view from our hotel room includes a snippet of central park!  This hotel was the driving factor for the NYC portion of our trip.  We had a free night stay at any Hilton as a credit card perk and wanted to get maximum value from it.  So we picked an expensive hotel and booked a night!  

Since this trip was really for hubby, we prioritized food experiences and the Statue of Liberty for our day-of-fun, squeezing in other places as we were able and the geography allowed. First stop for what we heard is authentic NYC style pizza was NY Pizza Suprema.  

From here we continued south and inquired about touring the Statue of Liberty.  To do so we'd need to catch a ferry to Liberty and Ellis Island.  We were able to get tickets (we hadn't pre purchased any due to uncertainty about flights being on time and hotel access.) and queued up to board the next ferry.  This isn't our line, but the one after us ... SO MANY PEOPLE!  

The ferry ride provided ample opportunities to shoot photos of Lady Liberty upon approach.  

We did climb up the Statue of Liberty's pedestal but weren't able to get tickets to the crown.  Those sell out about 3 months in advance.  

The following shots are from the pedestal:

Leaving Liberty Island, we continued on the ferry to visit Ellis Island, enjoying the skyline of Manhattan along the way:  

Ellis Island:

On our way back north, we stopped at the Ground zero memorial.  Wifey found the notations on the memorial for women and their "unborn child" particularly tear inducing.  

Next we made it for sunset at the Empire State Building and then continued onto Times Square!  Apparently we took exactly 0 pictures in Times Square

Sunset from the Empire State Building

After a brief rest at the hotel, we ventured back out for dinner at Gray's Papaya.  Wifey is on a slightly restricted diet so she settled for a virgin pina colada instead of the yummy smelling hot dogs.  

Since she missed out on the hotdogs, we also grabbed a quick slice of cheese pizza from the nearest pizza joint to our hotel to-go:

At the end of the day ... wifey's phone had 5% battery left and we had taken 30K steps per fitbit.  

Since we have Hilton Diamond status we each enjoyed a $25 credit at the hotel restaurant which we used Tuesday morning for breakfast.  Wifey's pancakes were picture worthy, though no worth paying $25 for in real money.  Hubby mostly powered through multiple glasses of juice as part of his $25 continental breakfast.

Post breakfast we headed over to the Moynihan Train Hall to catch an Amtrak down to Philadelphia!