We still had half of the American Revolution Museum to see, so in themorning we went straight back to walk through the rest of it. We are now really well versed in Revolutionary War history! Including how to prepare a musket to fire:
Our next stop was the American Jewish Museum. Another museum with so much information that the ticket is good for 2 consecutive days. We thoroughly studied the first two floors, 1600-1900s, which focused on immigration to America and how Jewish society developed throughout the US during these time periods. We lost focus by the time we got to the 1900s to present, but I know we will have plenty of opportunity to learn about those issues in the future. FYI – they have beautiful Judaica in the gift shop if you ever need a good gift while you are here.
We had so many options of what to do the rest of the day. There were about 20 different special events happening during this weekend. The communities really take advantage of the ideal weather in September and October (although it has been close to 90 degrees this weekend). We opted to join the Great Philly Tour – it is a 12 hour walking tour of Philly hosted by the Philly Tour Guides Association. Our Free Tours by Foot guide, Marianne, had told us about it. We chose to do the last of the 4 segments of the walk which went from City Hall to the Museum of Art. The Philadelphia City Hall is the largest in the country and it is beautiful. Not sure if they do tours of it, but it definitely would be worthwhile.
While we were waiting for it to start we hung out in the courtyard of City Hall which was also the location of one of the Monument Labs – a series of temporary artistic monuments set up around the city.
The last segment of the walk started at 5pm and we luckily ran into Marianne who had walked the other 3 segments of the tour (guiding one of them) so we joined her and her BF. It was really fun to be with them on the walk. The walk basically followed the Benjamin Franklin Parkway which includes the Franklin Institute, The Rodin Museum, The Barnes Foundation Museum and multiple other statues, parks, fountains, monuments, and significant buildings. This trip we are not going to have enough time to see the inside of all of these places so at least we got to see the outside. Of course we ended up at the top of the steps of the Museum of Art (you know – Rocky!)
Then we went over the back side to the waterworks (when was it going to end!) and finally to dinner which was so kindly hosted by the Tour Guide Association. Afterward we tried to get a ride on one of the Firefly Pedicabs, another temporary art installation, but they were sold out. (Picture borrowed from their website).
American History Roadtrip 