City of Brotherly Love, Philly, the Cradle of Liberty, the City That Loves You Back, the Quaker City, The Birthplace of America. With all these names Philadelphia certainly had a lot to live up to. Its definitely a city steeped in history as we found out during our stay but its also known for its arts and culture. Photos are here.

The Experience

If you visit Philadelphia arrive prepared to see and hear a lot of history, much of it relating to the founding of the United States. The two key attractions are Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Liberty Bell. To see Independence Hall you had to basically go along on a tour (though free it is advised that during peak seasons you pre-book) and honestly it was just a tad boring. Some of the stories were interesting but on the whole I think there was just a bit too much chit chat. Also it probably didn’t help that the group was quite large so unless you were at the front it was hard to engage with our tour guide.

Some of the more interesting attractions for me included:

The Masonic Temple in Philadelphia is the headquarters for the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Pennsylvania. We thought the exterior of the building was pretty cool but inside it was truly grand and befitting its title of Grand Lodge. The tour took us to 7 different halls all of varying styles and named according to the architecture:

	Oriental Hall		Gothic Hall
	Ionic Hall		Egyptian Hall
	Norman Hall		Renaissance Hall
	Corinthian Hall

Every part of the interior is decorated interestingly even their grand staircases lined with pictures of former Grand Masters.

Until recent times (okay nearly 30 years ago) City Hall was the most visible building in the Philly Skyline with a gigantic statute of William Penn, the founder of the city, sitting on top. It is also the most hated building if you believe our tour guide with many locals ashamed of its “ugliness”. To me it didn’t look so bad so I wonder if the ugliness is more to do with the image of the building. It took 30 years and millions of dollars in the late 1800s (apparently it is estimated to build the same building today would cost at least $2 billion) to put up. Maybe the lavishness and excess of the building was too much for the Quaker sensibilities.

The tour of City Hall was fairly interesting and our tour guide knowledgeable and as a bonus I got a nod, a smile and a brush on the arm from the Mayor. It was pretty funny as he was simply walking by us and not two seconds later two of his aides came flying by shouting into their walkie talkies that the Mayor was on the way.

The view from the top of the tower at City Hall was fabulous but annoying at it is a timed visit and only four or so people can go up in the lift at once. I’m not sure if they change the procedure during peak season.

The Reading Terminal Market. This is just one of many farmers’ markets in Philly but has the distinction of having a majority of Amish farmers and products. Whenever I’m visiting my family in New York I love eating this Dutch Potato Bread. I always thought the Dutch reference was to the Netherlands but now I’ve realised it meant the Amish. Silly me. One advice is if you want any of their product to make sure you get to the market before 3pm-ish because bang on they will pack up and leave. We had a late lunch of a Turkey sandwich and gravy. It literally is a sandwich smothered in gravy.

Some other fun things include finding giant Monopoly and other Gameboard pieces, visiting the very interactive Federal Reserve Bank of Philly (unfortunately not so interactive that we were given any money – except the stuff that had been shredded!) and walking down Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Philly Museum of Art and following in the footsteps of Rocky:

Finally, for fans of Iron Chef, a visit to Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s restaurant is a must. The restaurant has a pretty good selection of sushi and hot dishes but I thought I’d go with the $60 Omakase tasting menu (basically the Chef’s choice) because the maitre d said it was the same thing as getting the $100 Omakase tasting menu at night. They never tell you what you get but for $60 its fair to say you will get between 6-7 dishes. My brother had visited over Christmas and interestingly we had fairly similar dishes. It was all very yummy and very good quality:

Waiting for the food. Can’t wait!	Yellowtail Tartare with freshly grated wasabi and a sweet plum palette cleanser. Included crispy garlic/onion and dashi sauce.	Warm whitefish carpaccio hot oil and mitsuba leaf. Plus Chives. Delicious.
A trio: Salmon with yuzu sauce, House Green Salad with salmon bonito shaving and yuzu vinagrette	Rock shrimp tempura with spicy ‘kochujan’ aioli and chives and endives	Chilean sea bass – black bean sauce, shaved ginger and hot oil and diced bell peppers
Platter of sushi: Chu-Toro (Medium Fatty Tuna), Yellowtail, Giant Clam, Fluke, Jackfish	Dessert: Cheesecake with candied ginger and diced pineapple