Being a huge fan of holidaying in the USA, we set off on 23rd June 2012 to fly direct from Manchester to Philadelphia with US Airways. The holiday started with a great flight, we sat on a new model Airbus A330 in comfort and both my wife & I commented to each other we felt we had just a little more leg room than normal. The flight went quickly and everything was smooth, we picked up our luggage at Philadelphia International in record time and made our way to the front of the airport to find a taxi, as we planned to stay in Philly city for five nights, therefore we did not need to hire a car immediately.
Arriving at our regular Philadelphia hotel The Radisson Warwick Plaza, we checked in placed our luggage in the room then set off immediately to Rittenhouse Square, the park one block behind our hotel. My wife, son and I sat there for an hour, it was the first time my son had been to Philadelphia and we all watched the world go by.
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| RittenHouse Square, Philadelphia, PA |
Five wonderful days were spent in Philly, visiting various shops including the
Reading Terminal Market which is a great place to eat, by fresh food and mingle with the Philly lifestyle, the visitors centre, love park, the grave of Benjamin Franklin and generally walking through the city.
Philly has so much to offer for tourists with many placed to visit, such as The State Penitentiary, The Zoo, Penns Landing, Memorial Hall & The Franklin Inistute.
There are also great places to eat in Philly, we particularly liked
Bellini's a beautiful Italian style restaurant with a great atmosphere and superb food,
Bellini's is also a BYOB (bring your own bottle) restaurant so if you do visit, remembe to take a nice bottle with you. We also found
Little Pete's a great place for breakfast, it was right opposite our hotel and sums up everything you expect from a typical American local diner.
Little Pete's is open 24/7, reasonably priced and if you are looking to experience a good local inner city diner, then we can recommend this one to you. Not forgetting the many deli's around the city, all are great places to catch a bite to eat.
After leaving Philadelphia, we headed back to the airport and to collect our hire car and started to head North, with our first stop being Plymouth, Maine, as we intended to visit
The Plimoth Plantation, an opportunity for a day out and a trip to see The Mayflower II and a recreation of the Pilgrim village that settled in Plymouth and to understand how the settlement affected the local Wampanoag tribe.
There is actually plenty to do in
Maine and the countryside is beautiful, its a great drive from Philadelphia, in fact the first time we had ventured so far North, before heading off to Montreal and Niagara in Canada.
Our visit to Montreal was cut short as we had not realised it was Canada Day the following day (July 1st) so we moved on towards Niagara and managed to find a hotel, only just mind you as it was exceptionally busy as more than 20,000 people had descended on Niagara Falls, but what an atmosphere this created, the evening was electric with fireworks and a really good vibe. Niagara itself is a great place to visit, this is our second time here and its well worth seeing, the falls are awesome and its worth taking the boats out into the falls as seen in the picture on the left.
We moved on to Cleveland, Ohio, to do shopping and visit the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, an amazing museum packed with articles and memorabilia from some of the greatest musicians past and present. The museum also has a number of theatres were you can watch concerts from the inductions into the museum and learn about musicians from interviews and shows played on some of the large screens.
This was another amazing holiday, number eleven to the USA, a place we love and recommend.
My wife, my son and myself, really love the United States and think its a great country to visit, there is much more than just Florida and we would encourage any travelers to hire a car, get out and see the country.
Visit my website at www.usatouristguide.co.nf
