Philadelphia, PA

On Wed., May 30, we finally reached Philadelphia after an uneventful 4.5 hour cruise up the Delaware River.  The city’s skyline is quite impressive! And so were some of the boats we passed in the harbor.

We arrived at Pier 3 Marina at 2 pm and tied up adjacent to La Veranda Restaurant with walkways lined with gaily colored flower boxes.  

Our plan was to spend a full week here visiting Stephanie and other relatives and seeing the sights.  We were surprised by our marina, having visited it in the winter when we decided that the marinas in Philly were clearly not the nicest we had seen.  This one turned out to have friendly people, a good staff, decent restrooms and laundry facilities and the advantage of a great bar at La Veranda - not to mention its great location in the Old City.  We were within walking distance of many interesting things to do.  There was even a free bus for those of us who qualified age-wise!

One of the highlights of our trip included a visit from Emma, Jonny’s cousin’s daughter who lives in Philly. We hadn’t seen her in a couple of years so that was a treat.  

Stephanie had to work on Thursday and Friday so we went sightseeing on our own walking through the Old City.  Jonny had never been to the Jewish American Museum so we did that on Thursday.

Friday was spent at a most interesting site - the Eastern State Penitentiary, one of the oldest in the US.  When it was built in the 1830’s, it was located on the outskirts of the city among low rolling hills. It’s now surrounded by the City of Philadelphia on all sides. It’s a fascinating place to visit - quite ahead of its time.  It has a spoke and wheel design, housed Al Capone for awhile, and has a tiny restored Jewish synagogue among many other features.  Most interesting is a modern exhibit of our country’s history with incarceration and how that compares to other countries (not well).

Stephanie invited several of her friends to spend the day on Zendo on Saturday.  It was a beautiful day and we headed out a bit ahead of the tides and found ourselves almost stuck in the mud.  We managed to plow back to the dock and ate lunch on board while we waited for the  tide to come in.  An hour later we headed out for a cruise on the Delaware.  All of her friends are from the Philly area but had  spent very little time on the river.  It was a fun day and we made it back to the marina just ahead of a rainstorm.

We headed over to Stephanie’s comfortable apartment a block from beautiful Rittenhouse Square on Sunday where an excellent art fair was underway.  Her neighborhood is lined with stately townhouses and festooned with creatively decorated window boxes.

We had brunch at one of the great little cafes nearby. There are so many great little bars, restaurants and cool things to do within walking distance of Stephanie’s apartment - no wonder she loves living here!

Afterwards, we headed to  Manayunk, where Stephanie used to live, so Lynn could get a haircut. Jonny had biked here earlier in the day - about 10 miles there and back.  The haircut was not a wholly successful experience because the result was much shorter than Lynn wanted. The remaining days were spent with Stephanie and Jonny reassuring her that it looked good!  We took advantage of being on the outskirts of Philly by making a Costco and Walmart run.

Stephanie took Monday and Tuesday off from work so we visited some of the places that she hadn’t seen yet. One of those places was the very unique Magic Garden, a museum  and area of several square blocks that the artist Isaiah Zagar and his wife covered with mosaics and all kinds of folk art.  They were instrumental in the revitalization of this part of South Philly.  Exploring throughout this creative wonderland was fascinating.  

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By mid afternoon, it was time for the long awaited visit to Lynn’s cousin, Taylor-Lynn to meet her new baby Evangeline who was born in March.  Our timing was great because Lynn’s cousin Angela and her husband Jim (Taylor’s aunt and uncle) were visiting from Conn. for the day.  What a treat to meet little Evie who is just precious.  Although we had seen Taylor and Stu on previous visits, this was our first time seeing their home which they had  purchased and completely renovated doing a beautiful job! See little Evie waking up from a nap with the blanket that Lynn made for her.

Later that evening, Stephanie brought us to one of her favorite restaurants in Rittenhouse Square called Audrey Claire. The restaurant doesn’t even have a sign out front but they were doing a great business!

Our last day in Philly was bittersweet because we don’t get to see Stephanie that often. We went to the Philly’s wonderful Italian market where we filled our senses with colorful vegetables, arrays of pasta, racks of glistening fresh fish and ropes of sausage.

 After purchasing the makings for our dinner that night, we finally had our first  Philly cheesesteaks. We bought one from each of the city’s biggest rivals, Geno’s and Pat’s.  The verdict?  Jonny and Stephanie preferred Geno’s. Lynn preferred Pat’s.  

After our somewhat low brow experience, we opted for a more high brow one and headed over to the venerable Philadelphia Museum of Art.  There we saw an excellent special exhibit of 20th century artists and enjoyed the sculptures on the museum’s lovely grounds.

That night, we cooked a delicious dinner at Stephanie’s cozy apartment with the food we bought at the Italian market.  We had sausage and peppers and fresh  cavatelli with a rose’ sauce.  It was a fitting end to a wonderful week with our dear daughter.  We will miss her!