Philly first caught my attention with the advertisement for the Chinese Lantern Festival. Overall it is a fun city to visit and I would say its biggest drawback is that the actual city area smells bad. When we arrived Friday evening, we saw the beautiful Chinese Lantern Festival and enjoyed walking around the ornate set up. We took a bunch of pictures with pandas, dragons, swans and more, but my all time favorite is one with a random kid who wanted to be in our picture. He ran up to us and smiled for the camera while his parents stood, mortified, and tried to convince him to get out of our picture.
The next day we had fun at the Benjamin Franklin museum. It seemed like it was made for kids, with lots of interactive displays. We loved the layout of the museum and felt like we learned a lot about the man on the $100 bill. That same day we also went to the American Jewish History Museum which according to my fiance is the best museum he has ever been to. Exhibits were very informative, and the architecture and design of the museum was absolutely phenomenal. I highly recommend a visit to this museum. We then saw an orchestra concert in the evening at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
On our last day I met up with a friend and then we went to the Philadelphia Magic Gardens, which was a cool place to see some unusual art and take some interesting pictures. Another cool thing to note is that the Wanamaker Organ, the largest organ in the world, is located in the Macy’s Center City. We did not hear it being played, but it was a very impressive instrument to see in person.
We notably skipped out on seeing the liberty bell for four reasons:
1) It’s visible even if you don’t see it up close
2) The line is really long
3) I saw it in 5th grade
4) My fiance being English had no interest
Other notable sites we skipped because I went there in 5th grade: Betsy Ross’s House and Carpenter’s hall. All in all you can pack a lot into a weekend in Philly and there are museums and sights to keep you busy.
