Aelfgifu Travels

Hi Aelf Crew,

Next on my tour is Philadelphia. 

I got the bus there for £32.99 from Boston, which took just over 7 hours (thanks to traffic and the usual delays).

Once again, accommodation costs were higher than expected – if you need to play catch-up on the blogs of my tour of the Americas, then read about Boston here. For a grotty (albeit well-located) 18-bed dorm, the hostel was US$45 a night. Steep – like those Rocky steps (we’ll get onto this below…)!

If you’re particularly interested in American history, this is the city for you! Philadelphia is the home to the ‘Museum of the American Revolution’, ‘Independence Hall’ (where both the Declaration of Independence & Constitution were signed) and the ‘Liberty Bell’. 

You may be wondering to yourself, ‘Aelfgifu, why did you go to a city so focused on American history when you have no interest in this?’ and honestly, I asked myself the same thing when I was walking about. 

These attractions are all mostly free, which is a bonus, but when I pottered over to the Liberty Bell there was a huge queue outside in the rain. I’m not one to queue standing in the rain to look at a bell, so I admired it through the window and moved on with my day.

I managed to fill my time quite nicely by going shopping instead. I can highly recommend going to Reading Terminal Market. It’s full of life, with everything from local cheesemongers and butchers to bakeries and food stalls selling cuisines from all over the world.

Whilst Philadelphia is known for its ‘Philly cheesesteak’, I had to pass as my stomach had reached its limit with greasy American food by this point. If you have tried it before, do let me know in the comments if it’s worth the stomach ache!

I also came across the Korean War Memorial Park, which I found really interesting. It’s located right next to the river, and walking along the waterfront made for a peaceful break from the city centre.

With a friend I had made at the pub the night before (you’ll notice a recurring theme here), we took the subway to the Rocky Statue and walked around The Oval and surrounding areas. I will have to disappoint you again, my dear readers, for I have not seen Rocky. I was given a quick overview of the film before we ran up the steps for the obligatory photo. We then walked the 2.5 miles back to the hostel, through central Philly on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Much to our enjoyment, the parkway is lined with national flags and so we spent the whole walk competing to name them first and searching for our own. To my companion’s disappointment, there was no Kiwi flag. After some research, I learnt that the flags represent nations with significant populations in the city – so we can only assume there aren’t enough New Zealanders there to warrant one!

In hindsight, I would have skipped Philadelphia, purely due to my personal interests not aligning with what the city’s known for. That said, I would recommend Philadelphia if:

• you enjoy American history;
• you have seen the film Rocky;
• you like baseball; or
• you are interested in visiting Amish Country (many tours run from Philadelphia to nearby Pennsylvania communities).

Like a trooper I still enjoyed myself here, because in the famous words of a film I haven’t seen – 

“It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”.

Did I miss out on avoiding the Philly cheesesteak? Let me know below!

Independently unimpressed,

Aelfgifu