Rocky runs and Philly cheesesteaks

With less than 48 hours in Philadelphia and an ambitious itinerary featuring Rocky filming locations, bells, Philly cheesesteaks and street art, we had no choice but to hit the ground running…

🛤 The Pennsylvanian Railroad

Our route from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia started with a sunrise walk across the David McCullough Bridge on our way to Pittsburgh Union Station. I had to do extensive Google street-viewing the night before to check that the whole route had pavements (not a guarantee here!), but in the end, this wasn’t the problem – finding the station entrance was! I’d routed us towards the grand station entrance, but only after rattling each of the locked front doors did we realise that this was no longer part of the station. It turns out that the original station building was converted into residential and commercial space in 1988, and the current station is now housed in an ugly annex which I mistook for a car park! Anyway, we used all our contingency time doing laps of the building but made it onto the train just in time 😅

Our final Amtrak journey took 7.5 hours to cover the 476 km to Philadelphia. As always, it was a pleasure watching the landscape slowly change outside the windows – from the forested hills, gorges and steel bridges of southwestern Pennsylvania to the open landscape and neat farms of eastern Pennsylvania.

We arrived at Philadelphia’s grand and catchily named William H. Gray III 30th Street Station. After Cleveland and Pittsburgh’s rather under-utilised stations, it was encouraging to be back in a bustling transport hub once again.

🏃 Gonna fly now (running like Rocky Balboa)

The Rocky franchise is famously set in Philadelphia, and as a big fan, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to recreate his epic training run through the city. I set out just after sunrise with my headphones on and my phone loaded with the Rocky soundtrack. My first stop was the Italian Market along 9th Street, which has barely changed since the original Rocky movie was filmed in the 1970s. With a few hours until the market opened for business, I had the road to myself for the moment.

My route continued through leafy residential streets towards the increasingly commercial city downtown and along the grand Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the iconic Philadelphia Library stairs. By this point the temperature was already hitting 30 degrees, even though it was still only 07:20 in the morning. Time for a shower and some coffee!

🔔 Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell

Philadelphia is often referred to as the “birthplace of America”, since it’s where the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution were debated and adopted back in 1776. We visited this very site, which is now known as Independence Hall, but at the time was the Pennsylvania State House.

We also had the chance to check out the Liberty Bell, a 940 kg symbol of independence. We enjoyed learning (from our friend George) that this symbol of American patriotism was actually cast in London, although to our amusement we didn’t see this mentioned anywhere in the exhibit surrounding the bell. Then again, given it cracked shortly after arriving in Philadelphia, maybe it’s not something to shout about…

🥖 Searching for the perfect Philly cheesesteak

Philly cheesesteaks (or just cheesesteaks, as they’re known in Philadelphia) are an absolute city staple. They consist of thinly sliced rib-eye steak packed into a bread roll along with (optional) sautéed onions and (crucial) melted cheese. Traditionally Cheez Whiz is used, which is an orange-yellow spreadable cheese, but trust us – it’s way better than it sounds! The cheesesteaks were pretty filling too, and we found that one each more than satisfied us for dinner. We sampled as many as our time in the city and appetites would allow, and our favourites came from Sonny’s Famous Steaks. They managed to pack a ton of flavour into the roll as well as keeping the steak moist enough not to need any further sauce, but not to the extent that it turned into a dripping mess. Now, I don’t think the end result is supposed to look pretty, but we really did our best in photo below!

🧑‍🎨 Walking the Mural Mile

The street art programme in Philadelphia began in 1984 as an attempt to beautify the city and reduce the amount of graffiti. Since then, the programme has been hugely successful, with Philadelphia becoming undoubtedly the street art capital of the US, and with the medium bridging many divides within the city’s communities. The programme is still active today, and we saw evidence of several new murals in progress. The art works cover themes such as Philadelphia’s history, civil rights, diversity and inclusion. We thoroughly enjoyed walking the Mural Mile, and tried to take as many photos as possible along the way.

For some reason, we both had the preconception that Philadelphia was a bit rough, so it wasn’t really on our radar until we happened across our guidebook’s description of it as a city with “rich history and small town charm”. And sure enough, we loved Philadelphia almost immediately. The narrow streets and mixture of high-rise and residential neighbourhoods gave the city an almost European feel. Downtown Philadelphia was walkable too, with most neighbourhoods interspersed with leafy parks to escape the summer heat. Sitting in some of these parks, I could have easily mistaken the scene for a London park, had it not been for the Italian-American accents surrounding us.

From Philadelphia, we hopped on a bus to our final stop in the US; New York City.

Churches of beer and learning ⛪️🍺🧑‍🎓

From Amish Country, we drove 157 km east to reach the city of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania.

Like Minneapolis, Pittsburgh’s “Rust Belt” status is worn with pride throughout the city. Its metalwork heritage is celebrated through the local “Steelers” football team, and some of the city’s 446 (!) bridges have received a colourful facelift in recent years.

Our first stop was Pittsburgh University’s Cathedral of Learning. Built in 1926, this creation is a bizarre combination of a 163 m tall skyscraper, a neo-gothic cathedral and a modern day university. The exterior and interior are such strong contrasts that it’s hard to believe they’re the same building at all.

The Cathedral of Learning also features 31 nationality rooms surrounding the neo-gothic main hall. Each room is themed after a particular nationality or culture at a specific time in history. These rooms are as functional as they are decorative, with many classroom features (such as blackboards or projectors) hidden within historical artefacts. I’d actually visited previously (on a conference in 2012) and thought the building was cool enough to bring Sara back for a second visit. I’m not sure what was better – the infectious enthusiasm of our tour guide this time, or the thrill of being given a large iron key and being left to my own devices on my last visit! Either way, the rooms were really interesting, with lots of hidden symbolism and cool craftsmanship.

  • The Armenian room, modelled after the Sanahin Monastery (which we spent a whole 7 minutes exploring when we visited Armenia)
  • The Swiss room
  • The Syria-Lebanon room
  • The Hungarian room

Just outside the Cathedral of Learning, we came across a statue of Dippy, the world-famous Diplodocus. I had no idea that the skeleton that used to be housed within London’s Natural History Museum (currently in Coventry) is actually a cast of the original, which is on display inside Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I also love that the original skeleton, the cast, and this statue all share the same benevolent name of “Dippy” that was given in 1907 and has stood the test of time. Not at all confusing!

Statue of Dippy in front of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Just over 100 km southeast of Pittsburgh lies Fallingwater; arguably Frank Lloyd Wright‘s most famous building. Wright designed the building as a summer home for the Kaufmanns, a wealthy family from Pittsburgh and the owners of the Kaufmann’s Department Store. Apparently, the construction cost went five times over budget, although this didn’t seem to bother them very much. While a visit to Fallingwater had been high on Sara’s list, I’m normally less of a fan of residential architecture. But I have to admit it didn’t take long before I became pretty envious of the Kaufmann family’s beautiful holiday home!

The building is named for its unique construction directly above a river, which literally flows right through the building. As a result, the sound of falling water can be heard throughout every room in the main building.

We were fortunate enough to visit on a beautifully sunny day, which felt like redemption after our total washout in Oak Park, Chicago. This made the sun terraces extra inviting, which was lucky as we learned they make up nearly half of the building’s total square footage!

We left Fallingwater with a whole 40 minutes of contingency on top of the time needed to drive back to Pittsburgh to return our hire car. However, this time rapidly evaporated when we got stuck behind a slow-moving dumper-truck, hit two sets of roadworks, were slowed by general rush hour traffic, stopped for fuel, and took an unintentional detour across the Allegheny River on our final approach to the rental centre. In the end, we screeched into the car park with a whole 10 minutes left on the clock, and we were very relieved to hand over the keys just before they closed for the day. Although in a generally unhelpful location, the rental centre did happen to be just down the road from the Church Brew Works – a 1902 church-come-brewery, which quickly washed away our hire car stresses.

With the weather still on our side, we spent the rest of the evening on Mt Washington overlooking Pittsburgh’s downtown.

Fortunately for us, the mountain is easily navigated by the Duquesne and Monongahela historic funicular railways, which traverse the incline in a matter of minutes. The former even hosts a museum at its top station where you can see the original hoisting equipment in action as the car runs up and down.

  • The Duquesne incline viewed from the lower station
  • Original hoisting equipment
  • I love a good grammar war!

Watching the sun set and the sky turn pinky-blue behind the downtown skyline felt like a fitting end to our final evening in Pittsburgh. Next, we hopped back on an Amtrak train one last time, bound for Philadelphia, the “birthplace of America”.

Feeling unexpectedly at home in Amish Country

From Cleveland, we planned to hire a car and head south into Wayne and Holmes Counties, better known as Amish Country. This rural area of Ohio has the highest concentration of Amish people in the United States, and we were curious to visit and see a different side of American life. However, our day didn’t start on the most auspicious note when we arrived at the rental car centre to find that our reserved car was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t much we could do but wait while the chap behind the counter offered us various enormous SUVs and trucks as they were returned and there was still no sign of our little car 🚗.

Eventually, our car did turn up, and Oli decided to liven up the atmosphere in the office (we weren’t the only people waiting by this point) by posting his credit card down a gap between the counter and the rental car chap’s desk. Now, you might think that this would be easily fixed by reaching under the desk to pick it up from the floor, but the back office was filled with more boxes and piles of paperwork than I’ve ever seen in my life. So instead, what followed over the next ten minutes involved the hire car chap, a mop handle (actually, I’m not sure why, but the chap seemed to think it was helping), several other members of the public and Oli’s very long arms to eventually retrieve the card as the others held the tall counter at a precarious angle.

Note the crucial mop handle

While Oli was reaching into the ecosystem under the desk, the hire car chap saw his opportunity and asked Oli to pick out a few other things that had also descended into the ether but that he’d obviously thought were lost forever. I probably should have helped, but I was actually too busy laughing. I suspect that Oli was inspired by Dad’s credit card antics a few weeks ago and wanted to outdo him. I think he just about managed it!

Anyway, we eventually got on our way and headed south towards Amish Country, which we planned to spend the day exploring. Almost as soon as we entered the area and saw our first horse-drawn buggy on the road, it struck us that this place felt like home, which wasn’t at all our expected reaction! But we were surrounded by rolling hills, people getting around on bicycles (the modern alternative to horse and cart, perhaps?), and washing hung out to dry in the breeze. The latter in particular is such an unusual sight in the United States but so common elsewhere that it took us a moment to work out what was different!

Our first stop was Lehman’s (alternative link for non-US readers), an institution that has been selling non-electric appliances, such as indoor gas lighting and hand-cranked washing machines, to the Amish community and those who live off-grid since 1955. The whole shop felt bit like going back in time but with QR codes everywhere encouraging you to follow them on social media! We really liked their emphasis on longevity, though – many of the displays sold the individual components of items so that it was possible to repair things piecemeal rather than replacing them entirely, which is obviously more sustainable but not always easy to do. It was a pretty fascinating place – and I really will use any excuse to go homewares shopping, even when we don’t currently have a home to live in…

  • We loved that you need to go to a speciality shop for these here!

Our next stop was lunch, and for this we headed to another long-running institution, Boyd & Wurthmann Restaurant. But first, we had to park up, and I loved that there was both a regular carpark and a horsepark! The horses had a nice spot in the shade with snacks to keep them busy while their owners were in town.

Lunch itself was a triumph. We’d read that the restaurant specialised in Amish country-style cooking and luckily we’d really brought our appetites (as it was well after our usual lunchtime – nothing to do with Oli’s credit card debacle).

We went halves on two of their best-known dishes. The first was a roast beef sandwich, which was incredibly deep-fill and arrived smothered in gravy (I come from a family of gravy fanatics, so this was an unexpected bonus), and the second was a country fried steak, which was essentially hamburger meat covered in crispy fried-chicken coating (and more gravy). I know these aren’t exactly health food, but please do give us some credit that we chose green beans as our side – another of the options was jello! Jello with meat and gravy??!! We were actually quite tempted to try it out of sheer curiosity and bafflement. While writing this post, I’ve just noticed that it was also included as an option on the salad menu and I am now overcome with regret that I didn’t order myself a lovely healthy ‘salad’.

Boyd & Wurthmann is also known for its pies, of which there are usually a choice of around 15-20 each day. For obvious reasons, we didn’t manage to eat any as lunch pudding, but we each took a slice away (pecan for me and ‘black raspberry’ – I think this is just a blackberry! – for Oli) as we didn’t want to miss out on this essential component of Amish cuisine. They were pretty good, although it took us an awfully long time to build up an appetite for them and I’m not sure they quite beat the huckleberry pie from Montana.

Our final stop of the day was the small town of Sugarcreek, which the Lonely Planet described as channeling “a slice of Switzerland with alpine-style architecture and giant cuckoo clocks”. I thought this sounded rather nice but I wish we’d read between the lines that they weren’t actually recommending the town as much as saying that it existed – without a doubt, this was the least convincing of the three ‘Switzerlands’ we’ve visited on this trip so far! (See also Dilijan, Armenia and Glacier National Park, Montana). As well as the world’s largest cuckoo clock, the town had speakers playing yodelling music onto the streets. In a near-deserted town, this was pretty eerie and reminded us less of Switzerland and more of the public-service speakers in Laos, which broadcast patriotic messages (or propaganda, depending on your viewpoint) to the local population every day at 6am. Sugarcreek was obviously rather less sinister but weird nonetheless! We did quite enjoy watching the cuckoo clock strike the half-hour while we ate our Boyd & Wurthmann pies, though – the definition of ‘gentle entertainment’.

This concluded our day in Amish Country, which had been an unexpected antidote to any homesickness we might have been feeling. Next up, we were headed for something totally different: Pittsburgh, the steel capital of the United States.