24 Hours in Philadelphia

First and foremost, a trip to Philadelphia is not complete without checking out the historical areas:

- Independence Hall (Free, but requires tickets)
- The Liberty Bell (Free)
- The National Constitution Center (NOT free)

These are all in the Old Town area of downtown Philadelphia and are all close together. You should plan on spending at least half a day checking out all of the interesting historical sites, also including Franklin's Home, Congress Hall, the Second Bank of the United States, and more.

After that, check out the museums in town:

- The Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is where the famous Rocky steps are
- The Franklin Museum, which is Philadelphia's nice science museum, including an IMAX theater.

After that, there are a few other areas you can look into:
- The University of Pennsylvania, a very impressive Ivy League school
- The Rittenhouse Area, a nice shopping district.
- Philadelphia's Cheese Steak scene.

All of these were the highlights of our quick trip to Philadelphia.

Quick Tips:

- We visited on a Sunday and Monday, and unfortunately, we left several things to Monday that turned out to be closed on Monday. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as several of the less popular museums in the Independence Hall Park, are closed on Mondays. Plan accordingly!

- Get a map and walk around!

- Hit up the famous Cheese Steak locations on off-peak times. The lines can get ridiculous. A mid afternoon snack beats peak dinner time. Also, some of them are twenty-four hours, so if you're up late at night...

- Market street is the center street running through town.

Best Way To Get Around:

We are young, so we like to walk. We arrived in Philadelphia at the 30th Street Station, and walked to our hotel in Rittenhouse Square. It took us about twenty five minutes. When you look at a map, things may seem like they are "too many blocks away," but many of downtown Philadelphia's blocks are small and don't take long to cross. Everything we wanted to see was probably never more than two miles away.

Unfortunately, some of the areas are a little too far to walk. Getting from Rittenhouse to the University of Pennsylvania was a bit too far of a walk, as well as getting to the two famous cheese steak locations in town.

Philadelphia does have a bus and subway system, but it never really seemed convenient for us, and was a little confusing to an outsider. We decided it was too much trouble to deal with.

Cabs were not too difficult to find, and we ended up taking a cab back from the hotel to the train station since it was dark outside; if it had been during the day we would have saved the and walked it.

Philadelphia is, of course, along the Amtrak New England Corridor, and so you will find frequent train service--both regular and high speed Acela--south towards Washington, as well as north towards New York, New Haven, and Boston. Easiest way to get to neighboring cities. Philadelphia also has a fairly sizable international airport.

Anyway, except if it is dark outside or if you are going into less safe areas, I would recommend you walk it. Its a much better way to experience Philadelphia.

The Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel is located in the nice Rittenhouse Square area of downtown Philadelphia, about two blocks from the main Market Street, and easily accessible from 17th and Locust streets. We stayed there for two nights in a double room on a Priceline stay that cost about $80 a night.

The hotel looks very impressive from both the outside and the lobby, with a very old-school, elite English feeling to it. It apparently was very recently renovated, and it shows. Our room was fairly spacious and warm-colored, with two double beds, a desk, and decent sized bathroom. The view from our ninth floor room (looking towards the back) was of other buildings, so nothing too impressive.

There were several highlights to the room itself. Both beds were the Sleep Number beds by Select Comfort, meaning that you can adjust the bed to your liking. The room also featured a 32" Plasma Television with High-Definition TV (great for watching a football game!). Other perks included complimentary high speed internet, bottled water, and newspaper.

I had few major complaints with the room I stayed in. The most annoying part of the room was the door to the bathroom, which refused to close properly. Also, the window in the bathroom did not seal properly, so the bathroom became fairly cold in the morning. The room also conspicuously lacked electric outlets in most areas -- there was only one spare outlet near the Ethernet jack. The high speed internet also went out several times (although this appeared to be hotel-wide, as the business center suffered from this problem, too). One final minor complaint -- you have to request express checkout in advance. I had expected a copy of the bill to be slid under the door in the morning, but since I did not request it, no bill was provided until I went down to the desk to check-out. It would have been nice to get a copy to review earlier.

The staff of the hotel were incredibly friendly and a nice asset for my first trip to Philadelphia. They helped accommodate my requests and provided suggestions on where to go.

The hotel also features a bar and restaurant with fairly reasonably priced items, although we did not try it out ourselves. There are vending machines in the hotel with reasonable prices.

From the hotel, it is a quick walk to most of the nice restaurants and shops in the Rittenhouse Square area. Its about a fifteen to thirty minute walk to the Independence Hall area. To get to the hotel, we took a cab from the train station, which took about five minutes.

Overall, I was very satisfied with the Radisson Plaza Warwick and would highly recommend it.

Philly's Gourmet Cafe is a cafeteria-style food joint located in The Bourse at Independence Mall commercial complex. Philly's Gourmet Cafe is not going to impress you with its ambiance -- it is a cafeteria in the truest sense of the word -- but it serves the very useful role of providing a place for cheap quality food.

The cafeteria is located literally across the street from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, in the general area of almost all of the historical sites in downtown Philadelphia. It was recommended to us by the Visitor's Center as a place to get a good, quick, quality breakfast that didn't cost too much. It is right inside The Bourse center, located on the first floor right inside the doors to the left, apart from the main food court area.

We went there for breakfast, and ended up getting a decent sized plate of food and a drink for around five dollars. The breakfast options included all of the traditional breakfast foods -- pancakes, waffles, sausage, eggs, hash browns, etc. It should be noted that you pay by the pound, so keep that in mind when purchasing.

Philly's Gorumet Cafe has a small eating area with a few tables to eat at, or you can take it outside on a nice day. It's a simple cafeteria, so you take care of everything yourself.

Anyway, this is not the most impressive food joint, but it is an excellent spot to grab a quick, cheap, quality meal while walking around the Independence Hall area of historic sites.

The Continental Midtown is a stylish restaurant in the Rittenhouse area of Philadelphia serving Asian-fusion style food for moderate prices. We throughly enjoyed our Monday evening visit that ended up costing us about $70 for three people.

The most striking aspect of the Continental is the decor and ambiance of the restaurant, which is clearly catering to a young, hip, and relaxed crowd. The restaurant is fairly dark with mood lighting. On the first floor, diner booths line the walls, with a recessed seating area in the middle. On the second floor you will find more seating, including neat hanging chairs that looked like they would be fun to sit in (unfortunately we did not get the chance too). The Continental also has a nice bar area, although we did not sample from it.

The staff of the restaurant were incredibly nice and attentive. We were able to get a seat almost right away, although I understand that things get busy at peak times. Without getting too superficial, all of the employees were, in keeping with the ambiance, young, well-dressed, and attractive. We were well taken care of the entire time.

Keep in mind that most of the food has large portion sizes and are meant to be shared communally across the table. As a result, you are able to try several of the dishes they offer. We ended up getting the lobster mashed potatoes, boneless duck breast, that chicken lettuce wraps, and sizzling garlic shrimp scampi. Everything tasted wonderful, particularly the lettuce wraps. We also got the Continental Salad, which, while large, was not particularly impressive, but at the same time not bad. The desert menu, in contrast, is made up of very small portions for individuals; it looked tasty from the menu, but we opted for a more affordable ice cream shop down the road.

We definitely enjoyed our meal at The Continental -- it was fun and tasty. Would highly recommend.

Scoop DeVille is a wonderful little casual ice cream shop on Chestnut Street in the Rittenhouse area of downtown Philadelphia. In an age where Coldstones and Dairy Queens are a dime a dozen, it was nice to find a local ice cream shop. There motto is, "Life is Short... Eat Dessert First!"

When you walk in, you immediately feel that this is a family-owned place, with lots of memorabilia and Philadelphia fanfare on the wall to keep you entertained. The menu for Scoop DeVille is hand written on an extremely large chalkboard, and boy is it a large menu.

The shop, of course, specializes in ice cream and frozen yogurt. All the major ice cream flavors are represented, with a remarkable list of candies, cookies, fruits, nuts, and more that can be mixed in with your combination right before your eyes. The prices are fairly reasonable, with several different sizes of ice cream. The shop sells chocolates and candies for purchase, as well. They have several house favorites, and I tried "Kaeli's Kraziness", which includes vanilla ice cream , Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, strawberries, and bananas, all mixed together in a blender. Very tasty.

Scoop DeVille also has a second location at the University of Pennsylvania. They appear to have won a "Best of Philly" award a few times, and seem to be well connected with the community.

Scoop DeVille was a very tasty and fun stop after dinner during our stay in downtown Philadelphia, and I would highly recommend it!

We didn't intend on eating at Steaks on South -- we had planned on going to one of the more famous cheese steak locations in Philadelphia, but the lines there were just too long for us, so on the way back we ended up trying Steaks on South, a rather new cheese steak joint on South Street.

Believe it or not, the cheese steaks they make are actually really good, and of a decent size. The plain old cheese steak I got came with fries, and came to around $10 or so all told. The restaurant also offers a whole menu of other options, so even if you are not in to the cheese steak, you'll be able to find something.

Inside, they have both booth seating and bar style seating, and plenty of room to hold people. I am not sure if this was a decorative choice or results from some sort of sponsorship, but there are Coca-Cola logos *everywhere*. The booths, the signs, the refrigerators, the counters -- everything says Coca-Cola, almost to the point where it starts to get annoying. You have to wonder what is going on there. Other than that, the place has a very youthful and fun feel to it.

The prices are a little on the high end for a fast food joint -- with drink, it came to around $10. It is also worth noting that they are a cash only restaurant.

I was also a little annoyed by the guerrilla marketing done outside - they had a guy handing out coupons for a free order of fries with you order, and he aggressively tries to get you to go in and order. I understand that they are the new kid on the block, but it felt like it was a little too much. It also turned out that everyone got a free "small" order of fries with their cheese steaks, and with the high prices, I would hope so.

Overall, I was a little disappointed that I ended up here as opposed to one of the "old school" cheese steak places, and even though it cost a little bit, it was still an enjoyable experience. I would recommend it.

Known at the time as the Pennsylvania State House, and now known simply as Independence Hall, the building and surrounding national park in downtown Philadelphia offers a breathtaking and remarkable look back on the founding moments of our nation.

It is amazing to consider what actually took place in Independence Hall -- both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated here, with many of our nation's founding fathers voicing their opinions and views that would ultimately lead to the legendary documents. Even the most casual of Americans should take a moment to go through the building -- it can be quick, and its hard to not be impressed.

The building itself is in remarkably good condition. There are several areas in the building, including the seat of the court, the room where the Declaration was debated, and the reception room upstairs. All have been restored with replica furniture by the National Park Service to what it likely looked at during the time period. Next door to Independence Hall itself, but still part of the Independence Hall complex and within the secured area, is the building where the Congress met during the period before Washington, D.C. was completed. In another building in the secured area you will find draft copies (original, but not signed) of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The entire complex is run by the National Park Service. Pictures are allowed, except when around the charter documents. For the three buildings, keep the following in mind:

- For Independence Hall, you need to obtain tickets from the National Park Service's Visitors Center nearby. The tickets are free, but they are for a specific time, so plan ahead. It is highly advisable to go early in the morning, especially during peak tourist season. The tickets are for a tour of Independence Hall run by a Park Ranger -- I found it highly informative and worthwhile. You can't get into Independence Hall without a tour guide.

- The Congress Hall is inside the secured area and only accessible by tour, however the tours, which launch every twenty minutes, do not require tickets. I found it worthwhile, but certainly not as interesting as Independence Hall

- Finally, the building with draft copies of the Charter documents has no tours and no tickets necessary. There are always Park Rangers inside talking about the significance of what you are looking at, but you can enter and leave at any time.

It goes without saying that this is one of the most significant historical sites in Philadelphia, and should not be missed. It is easily accessible from most of the downtown area, and is not hard to find. Very Highly Recommended.