Visiting Philadelphia: A Guide, Part 2

I’m back with our second day of adventures in Philly. If you didn’t catch our day 1 activities, you can check it out here.

Our second day of sightseeing was also the day we were leaving to head home. We managed to cram everything except two things into our designated day of sightseeing. We left those two for the morning of our departure because they were on the side of town that our hotel was on.

Of course first order of business was checking out of the hotel and getting a good breakfast. We asked the concierge to point us in the direction of a good place to fuel up for the day, she quickly directed us to a cute little diner called Sabrina’s. It was a short walk from the hotel and on our way to our first stop. There’s a few different Sabrina’s located around Philly and NJ, the one we stopped into was a small place and decorated very cute. It reminded me of our favorite local breakfast spot near our house, The Townhouse.

I mean look at those decorations, it like you at your Grandmothers for breakfast. My favorite thing though was they served your coffee in all kinds of random mugs, just like you would get served if you were visiting a friend. There were so many good food choices on the menu it was hard to pick just one. I finally decided on the stuffed french toast, which they used Challah bread to make. If you’ve never used Challah bread to make your french toast, you should right away, it’s the best. When they arrived at the table not only were they huge, they were delicious! This place was A+ all the way around and you should be sure to check it out.

After breakfast we headed to what just might be the top activity in Philadelphia, Eastern State Penitentiary. This was a prison that opened in 1829 and was one of the biggest and most secure prisons at that time. The tour was an audio tour, which is always nice because you can go at your own pace and you aren’t competing with the entire group to hear the guide. The tour was very thorough and was filled with tons of information and stories of prisoners.  At the time of construction ESP was the largest building in the United states and was located 2 miles outside the city. A testament to how much our country has grown as it now sits in what’s considered Downtown Philadelphia. The prison was designed to resemble a Medieval/Gothic castle, which explains why you welcomed to the prison by two gargoyles who overlook the entrance.

The penitentiary s designed as a series of cell blocks that all ran off of a central hub. The hub in the center was the surveillance hub as you can monitor all 7 of the cell blocks through their arched openings. Through out the prison as certain times during the day there are numerous talks explaining specific cells, or teaching lessons in how to open and close the cell doors. Your tour is filled with stories of escape attempts, one successful escape tale, and stories  of famous inmates (ie: Al Capone). There was even an entertaining story about a dog that was a prisoner there.

I personally think this was the a great tour and I highly recommend you add it to you plans when you plan your trip to the Philadelphia. I’ve also done the tour of Alcatraz, America’s other popular Historical prison. The Alcatraz tour is also great but I personally feel the ESP tour is much better. One last thing that’s important to know is that if you find yourself in Philadelphia over Halloween, they turn the prison into a huge haunted house with different themes in each cell block. It’s called Terror Behind the Walls.

After our tour of the prison we made our way over to probably the most famous photo opportunity in Philadelphia, The Rocky Steps. These steps are actually the entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. If you’re familiar with the move you know the scene the steps are a reference too. I’ve never seen any of the Rocky movies but I do know the significance of the steps. There’s also a Rocky statue at the bottom of the steps that is very popular as well. Thousands of people flock to these steps daily to take their picture on the steps and with the statue. I had spend part of our trip running a half marathon through the city so I skipped running up the steps, but we did make sure to take our picture with the statue. Next time I’ll be ready to run (or walk) up the steps. If you’re not a Rocky fan you should still make your way to the plaza in front of the museum because it’s a beautiful park and the view from the steps toward the downtown metro areas is beautiful.

Our last stop was thanks to an episode of Man vs. Food that I had seen years ago. In the episode they visited the cutest ice cream shop in Philadelphia. The shop was called The Franklin Fountain and it’s modeled after the old soda shops from the 1950’s. It’s a small little place right near the water and it has a menu full of original fountain sodas, baked goods, ice cream cones, and the reason we went their sundae menu. I don’t usually order sundae because they’re usually just overloaded with chocolate syrup and not much else. However, I made sure from the moment they introduced the signature “Franklin Mint” sundae on the episode that when we made it to Philadelphia it would be on out list to get this sundae. I mean just read this menu description:

“MINT CHIP and VANILLA BEAN ice creams engraved in

CHOCOLATE SYRUP, fluffy MARSHMALLOW GLAZE and

CREME DE MENTHE finished  with house-made WHIPPED CREAM

and a MINT CHOCOLATE COIN from Shane Confectionery.”

My favorite ice cream flavor is Mint Chocolate Chip so it was calling my name! The sundae’s are huge so we only got one and shared it and it was the best sundae I’ve ever had. If you’re not a fan of mint they have several other sundae options on their menu to choose from. If you happen to be in Philadelphia on a hot summer day make sure you stop by the Franklin Mint for a cool treat.

We also took the tour of the Philadelphia Mint. It was so interesting to learn about the process of making money and to see it in process. Understandably they don’t allow pictures inside the Mint, so I don’t have anything to share with you about that activity. It is worth it though if you have the time to fit it into your trip.

We loved Philadelphia and plan to return to visit again one day. Exploring new cities is our favorite activity and I love researching and planning out our trip. Hopefully when I share our travels it can take some of the stress out of planning your trip when the time comes. I love getting recommendations from other people so if you have anything I didn’t get too that people should be sure to check out in Philadelphia make sure to leave it below in the comments.

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