Winnie and I each got a one night stay at any hotel offered by Hotel Tonight.com as a Mother's Day giveaway by the always generous Wendy Williams Show. We decided to combined our nights and stay somewhere in driving distance. When Winnie suggested Philly, I jumped on it! There's lots to see, only a 2 hour drive and I had never been.
I did my research! The hotel app only allows making a rez 7 days in advance at the most. It's a great app. I enjoyed using it very much. After much see-sawing on where to stay, I decided that the most important aspects of the hotel would be location, parking and free WiFi. I narrowed it down to the Wyndham in the Historic District because - as the name implies - it's located a block or two from Independence Mall. We could have tried for 2 nights there but we were both fine with moving to another and I thought the Hilton Garden Inn located next to the Reading Terminal Market and a few feet from Chinatown, seemed perfect for our plans to visit City Hall, Love Park and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA).
I do admit...it was an extremely planned trip. It started with Winnie discovering a new event - the Chinese Lantern Festival in Franklin Park. The images were enticing especially since the installments were best seen at night all lit up. We centered the whole trip around the festival. The hotel was a few blocks away - I felt that was important - 2 women walking around at night in a city we weren't familiar with - I didn't want to be far from our hotel. Then I read that PMA offers "pay as you wish" on Wednesdays after 5pm. No brainer. Festival on Tues and PMA on Wed. I purchased the festival tickets online and we were all set.
I picked up Winnie at 9am in Chinatown and the drive was so easy including entering the Holland Tunnel which is usually a nightmare! We didn't make any stops. Didn't get lost. Didn't make any wrong turns. I was so happy! We drove straight to South Philly and to Pat's and Geno's which happens to be right across the way from each other. We arrived around 11'ish and although we heard the stories of long lines...no lines at all and I was even able to park right across the street from Pat's! I went there and got "one wiz wit" and Winnie went across the way to Geno's and got the same along with an order of fries. I was hungry and our plan to eat them at the hotel went out the window and we ate them in the car. Yum-o! But we both agreed...Pat's was the better of the two - not that I would pass on a Geno's if given to me!
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| I'm in front of my car...that's how close I parked to Pat's! |
After eating, we drove to the Wyndham - found easily and self-parked the car. Not knowing if we would even get a room, we went to check in (no wait) and lucky us, was given a room. We went back to the car and got our belongings and headed to the room (350) to freshen up before heading out.
A short walk got us to the Visitor's Center. It was a hot day so it was lovely to cool off in the air-conditioned building and wander around looking at the historical facts displayed. We noticed many school field trips. But still...we were - once again - very fortunate in that we didn't encountered any lines! The Liberty Bell...a popular sight - was easily accessible to us. We took the requisite photos and left.
We wandered through the "hood" - and because we're not history buffs, it was more to say we were there than anything else. We did decide to walk over to Franklin Park just to get the lay of the land and the installments were fun to see in daylight too. We also learned how nearby we were to our hotel and knew we would have no problems when we returned that night. I will have a separate posting just about the Chinese Lantern Festival.
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| Pretty townhouses with "cellars" |
We were relaxing in the hotel room before dinner for a couple of hours when Winnie remembered the roof-top pool!! How could we forget? We had about an hour to hang there and catch some last minute rays. I even took a dip!
Dinner was at Amada on Chestnut St. So glad Bicky recommended it. After all the beef I ate for lunch, tapas was a perfect choice. The restaurant is located in a quaint area (West Village'esque) and listed on many's top ten list. We LOVED our dinner. Pretty place, wonderful service - delicious food! We ordered: tortilla (what a terrific dish of potatoes and egg) - garlicky shrimp, grilled calamari, mussels, spicy clams and they started us with a tuna and olive spread on the house.
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| Our tuna & olive spread with tortilla crisps - gratis |
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| Blue Hill Bay Mussels with saffron toast |
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| Spanish Tortilla - scrumptious! |
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| Grille Calamari - Garlic Shrimp - Clams with Chorizo |
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| Our waiter, Miguel was wonderful but lousy at taking pics! |
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| My own selfie! |
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