As the original capital of the United States, many noteworthy historical events happened in Philadelphia in the early years of the nation. A lot of important sites are now housed within the Independence National Historical Park, a collection of buildings and grounds spanning much of the old town district.
Liberty Bell
We spent a few days in Philly last week, and since we only had one real full day in the city, we decided to loosely follow the 1-day itinerary featured in my AAA guidebook. We started the day by heading over to the Independence Visitor Center right at 8:30 when it opened. There, we watched a slightly corny intro video because nothing else was open yet. After the video finished, we headed next door to the Liberty Bell Center. There was a mini museum there detailing the history of the bell, and then at the end of the hall the famed bell itself. It was a nice little exhibit that didn’t take much more than half an hour.
Independence Hall
The bell center exit was almost right next to our next stop, Independence Hall. We jumped on one of the free half hour tours of the building, and got to see the old meeting rooms and offices of all three branches of government. The tour deposited us behind the building, in a little square with access to various other buildings. One of the other buildings was Congress Hall where we took another guided tour, this time of the old House and Senate chambers.
Cheesesteak from Ishkabibble's
By this time we were getting hungry so we went to get lunch at, of course, a Philly cheesesteak place. After lunch we headed over to the opposite side of the park to see the National Constitution Center, a large museum dedicated to all aspects of the Constitution. I was a little skeptical at first about how you could make an entire museum about one document, but there were actually a lot of great exhibits there. The main attraction was a live dramatic narration of the founding, followed by a huge exhibit talking about the nation’s history and how different events led to various amendments to the Constitution.
National Constitution Center
After visiting the Constitution Center we walked around the old town a bit, looking at Christ Church and the Betsy Ross House from the outside (they closed early for Christmas eve so we couldn’t actually go inside). We also took a stroll down Elfreth’s Alley, a cute little street that has retained the old 18th century style of architecture. By this time everything was closing, so we went and had a nice sushi dinner at Morimoto’s, the product of a former Iron Chef contestant, and then went for a walk around the Penn’s Landing waterfront to see the nice holiday decorations.
Sushi at Morimoto
View of the waterfront
Philadelphia may be somewhat overshadowed by NYC in terms of sheer number of attractions, but it’s still a big city with a rich culture and lots to see. I hope to make it back someday to explore it more thoroughly.
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