Dear readers, I’m in Maryland, having just buried my beloved uncle and now helping to tend to my ailing father. Since I’ve been distracted away from ye olde blog this week, I gratefully accepted my friend Mara Gorman’s (The Mother of All Trips) offer of a guest post. I’ll soon resume a more regular schedule, but in the meantime, I truly hope you enjoy Mara’s writing and travel advice as much as I do.

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LOVE signs in Philadelphia

Here’s a myth: To really relax, you need at least ten days of vacation.

As a busy parent of two busy boys, though, weekends away are often the only option for me and my husband.

Luckily for me, I’m a big believer in the restorative qualities of a quick getaway, and since I live smack in between New York City and Washington, DC I have lots of options when it comes to an urban retreat. And so, a cold spring weekend found my husband Matt and I dropping our children at my sister’s house outside of Reading, Pennsylvania and heading for downtown Philadelphia for a sybaritic, if short, visit.

If you’re planning a quick trip to Philadelphia, I recommend booking a hotel through the Visit Philly website where you will find different deals, often including admission to local attractions or events. When we visited in March of 2011, we used the Philly Overnight Hotel Package, which gave us two nights at the Hotel Sofitel in a spacious junior suite plus free parking for $500. The hotels offering this deal change routinely, so check back often if you don’t see anything that appeals.

I loved the Sofitel, which has a great location just blocks from the chic shops of Rittenhouse Square in one direction and City Hall in the other. Although our room didn’t have much of a view, the huge bathroom (complete with a separate shower and tub, both quite large), super-comfy bed, and generous sofa more than made up for this. There’s a totally French vibe here, with L’Occitane toiletries, divinely dark coffee (free for pick up in the hotel restaurant), and adorably scarved desk clerks who greet guests with a chipper “Bonjour!” It was also quiet, which for parents making a getaway is so very key (I’m not going to reveal here how long we slept each night, but let’s just say I didn’t wake up feeling like I needed an immediate infusion of caffeine as I usually do).

After checking in on Friday evening, we immediately decamped to Village Whiskey, which is right around the corner, for some bar food. But this isn’t your mother’s bar food, oh no. Let’s just start with the French fries, shall we? They are cooked in duck fat. If you want (and you want) you can order them with a side of cheddar cheese sauce. Somehow we managed to devour ours along with a dinner-plate sized hamburger and a pulled pork sandwich drenched in whiskey barbeque sauce. It would have been easy to linger over drinks and people watching. But we knew that others were waiting for our table, and not wanting to deprive anyone the chance to sample some of those fries, we rolled back to our room.

On Saturday morning we decided that coffee in the hotel wasn’t quite French enough and headed over to Rittenhouse Square for brunch at Parc where I satisfied my cravings for pastries with an entire basket of them. From the subway tile to the antiqued glass mirrors, this bistro is perfectly Parisian; the one inauthentic thing is that the hosts actually smile at you when you arrive – aren’t they adorable?

The hosts at Parc Bistro in Rittenhouse Square

Enjoying brunch at Parc

Heading back towards the Sofitel, we decided to pop into Joseph Fox Books, which is across the street. This deceptively small store has such a lovingly curated collection of books, especially in the category of art and architecture, that if you’re like us, you’ll find it hard to get out of there with just two or three. In keeping with the theme of the weekend, I purchased a reproduction of a 1902 book titled Trente Six Vues de la Tour Eiffel (Thirty Six View of the Eiffel Tower), lithographs showing the Eiffel Tower from various vantage points around Paris as it was constructed. I could have happily sat in the Sofitel bar and looked at my new treasure all afternoon, but the city beckoned.

Joseph Fox books in Philadelphia

We continued our wander over to 13^th Street between Chestnut and Sansom Streets where we found a newly hip stretch of shops and restaurants developed by chefs Marcy Turney and Valerie Safran.  From coasters to chocolate to chic purses to cupcakes, you’ll find just about anything you want for your house or person here, with Mexican and Indian restaurants thrown in for good measure. We lingered for a good long time while I almost bought a completely impractical purse but decided (somewhat to my chagrin, as I look again at the pictures) that I shouldn’t let the freedom of the weekend go to my head.

Shopping at Verde on 13th Street, Philadelphia

The rest of that afternoon was spent walking through Old City where we actually took the time to read the historical placards in Washington Square (although I’ve walked through it many times before, I had no idea it used to be a potter’s field). There’s of course lots to explore in the national park that surrounds Independence Hall, but we’d seen most of it before, so we limited ourselves to a quick visit to Carpenter’s Hall before ending our walk in Elfreth’s Alley, the oldest (and perhaps cutest) residential street in the United States.

Washington Square in Philadelphia

Indepdence Hall under wraps

Tired of walking, we hopped in a cab and went back to our room for a rest before gussying up for the evening. I was glad I had brought my glamour-girl heels when we walked into the Franklin Mortgage and Investment Company, a lovingly restored former speakeasy that was once the front for the largest alcohol ring in the country. This is a place where you go to drink and not much else – the cocktail menu is literally a book, with chapters titled “The Flowing Bowl” and “I Asked Her for Water and She Gave Me Gasoline.” The drinks themselves are amazingly complex and delicious, including unusual ingredients like blackberry-habeñero syrup or cinnamon tincture. It’s a sexy, dim place that might be dangerous for a first date. Or maybe not, depending on how you roll.

With a slightly wobbly hail, we grabbed a taxi and headed over to Fork, which is our favorite restaurant in Philadelphia. The seasonal American food here never disappoints, nor does the eclectic and reasonably priced wine list. If you can, ask to be seated in one of the deep leather banquettes that line the back wall – they are totally luxurious to recline against while sipping that lovely French wine you’ve never heard of before.

After another fabulous night of sleep we drove just out of the city to Merion where we had reservations to see the amazing collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings at the Barnes Foundation. You have until July 3, 2011 to see the paintings in their original location; after that they will be moving to a new and very controversial location on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Wherever you get to see this art, I recommend doing so – the collection includes almost 200 paintings by Renoir, to say nothing of dozens of Cézannes, Matisses, and Picassos.

Well-fed and relaxed, we left Philly feeling like we’d definitely gotten the most out of our brief time away. Our well-being was short-lived since we received a call on the way to pick up our children that our older son had badly broken his arm. But the glow did manage to last all the way to the door of the emergency room, and that’s something!

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Mara Gorman has been traveling her whole life, more recently with her two school-age sons to destinations ranging from California to Paris to India. Her credo includes stylish shoes, carry-on luggage, anything French, high thread-count sheets, hiking, afternoon tea, and ice cream. She blogs about family travel at The Mother of All Trips.

Travels With Two

This past weekend, we took a brief break from some epic spring cleaning to check out The Garden Conservancy‘s first Open Days event of the year in the Los Angeles area.

Held all over the United States each year between March and November, Open Days allow you to snoop around other people’s backyards and/or find landscaping inspiration while simultaneously raising money to provide and preserve garden spaces across the country. It’s a fun, romantic and altruistic outing, whether you’re traveling in a different city or simply exploring your own. Traditionally a mapped route of six private homes in one area that open their outdoor spaces to the public for one day, Open Days provide a unique opportunity to experience a neighborhood through its plantings, design, architecture and history. The volunteers who work these special events can generally answer questions about the people who own the homes involved, tales of the buildings and homes that surround it, why certain design decisions were made, what to call that purple flower over there, and stuff you’ll probably only think to ask once you’re surrounded by absolute floral magnificence.

Open Days gardens range from homey affairs to sprawling estate layouts, English country to low-water plantings, and it’s fascinating to see how truly gifted gardeners incorporate fountains, pools, waterfalls, patios, sculpture, lighting and a myriad artistic details into their designs. For garden and travel lovers like us, it’s also just plain exciting when we discover exotic plants we’ve never seen before.

These are some glimpses of this past Sunday’s Open Days event in Pasadena, California. Be sure to check out the entire Open Days schedule to see where you might catch some cool gardens in your area — or on your next vacation.

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Open Days are held around the U.S. between March and November,
on Saturdays and Sundays between (generally) 9am and 5pm.
No reservations are necessary, and all tours require self-driving.
Each Open Days event provides a starting point address where you can pick up a map of the day’s gardens.
Tickets can be purchased online in advance, or in person at any stop along an Open Days route.
Ticket prices: 6 for $25 US for non-members, or 6 for $15 US for Garden Conservancy members.

Travels With Two

Both our moms are from Pennsylvania
(mine from Pittsburgh, Adam’s from Philadelphia’s Main Line)
and thankfully, we still have family there.

It’s a lush, green, hilly state full of
art, food from around the world, and our nation’s history.

And, of course, the incomparable LaMalot Farm.

Here are some resources to help you plan your own “travels with two” to Pennsylvania.

Travels With Two
Posts on Pennsylvania

 

 PENNSYLVANIA – GENERAL

Guides
Pennsylvania State Tourism Guide
National Geographic
Concierge.com
Frommers
Fodors

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PHILADELPHIA
Guides
National Geographic Traveler
Samantha Brown
Articles
Budget Travel: 25 Reasons We Love Philadelphia
Travel + Leisure: Philadelphia Story
Cooking Light: Philadelphia: The Old City
Cooking Light: Rittenhouse Row and Avenue of the Arts

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PITTSBURGH
Articles
Budget Travel: Cutting-Edge Pittsburgh
New York Magazine: Weekend Escape: Pittsburgh’s Emerging Art Scene

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OTHER PA DESTINATIONS
Articles
National Geographic Traveler: Drives of a Lifetime: Brandywine Valley
National Geographic Traveler: Historic Places Rated: Lancaster County
New York Magazine: Weekend Escape: Gardening in Bucks County
Travel + Leisure: A Tour of Milford, PA
New York Magazine: Weekend Escape: Blast Back to 1950 in the Endless Mountains
Travel Channel: Romantic Spa Vacations: The Spa at the Hotel Hershey

 

Longwood Gardens by wsh1266 (flickr)

Philadelphia by Gabriel Millos

 

Have a Pennsylvania tip, story, or blog post you’d like to share?

Travels With Two

Pittsburgh skyline from Mount Washington

So, you’re probably thinking, “Pittsburgh?  Really?”

I’ve always gone there because it’s where my mom grew up, and where my grandparents always lived.  But I’ve come to find that Pittsburgh can be pretty darn cool all on its own. It’s a city of beautiful hills, rivers, and bridges, art, shopping, parks, and food, and despite ongoing transition from the coal dust of the past, it absolutely shimmers at night.

Oh, and it has just about the best model train set on Planet Earth.

As a child, my brother and I would visit the Kennywood amusement park and the wonderful Pittsburgh Zoo, go boating on the Allegheny River, or spin on snack bar stools in our wet towels and bathing suits by the Green Oaks Country Club pool, eating Nutty Buddies and listening to “My Sharona” by The Knack.

As an adult, my husband, Adam, and I have been to Pittsburgh together many times for family Thanksgivings or celebrations, stopovers en route to the East Coast, or a quick weekend in the January snow. We’d make whole evenings with my grandparents of art house films, salads at Panera, and being shown off at the de facto geriatric home, the Concordia Club. We were there when the whole family gathered for my grampa’s funeral in November 2006.

Recently, I flew to Virginia and drove to Pittsburgh with my mom, aunt, and 20 year-old cousin to visit with my step-grandma and step-aunt. Fischer Girls’ Weekend ’08 was a marvelous time.

It can be said that Pittsburgh has encompassed many moods in my life, and I’ve had a lot of opportunity to discover it. Thing is, I’m just starting to scratch the surface.

But here’s what I’d do with a few days in Pittsburgh, if I were you:

Schenley Park

First off, I’d plan to go in early June, when it’s leafy and sunny and temperatures are (generally) not yet insanely hot, or October, when the trees are at their autumn peak in this park-heavy town.

Find out when the big local universities (Pitt and Carnegie Mellon) are having games or large events, and when the Steelers are playing at home. Don’t come then.

I’d consult the famous website, Pittsburghese.com, to familarize myself with the unique cadence of the locals, who call themselves Pittsburghers. Pay special attention to their names for area landmarks, as this’ll help you later if you have to ask for directions. You’ll want to understand words like “yins” for you all, “upstreet” for up the street, and “dahntahn” for downtown.

Next, I’d spend a few minutes playing around with this map of Pittsburgh with roads or this map of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods. The city isn’t a picnic to drive around in, but you can at least acquaint yourself with the area before you get on the wrong exit and head off towards Moon Township.

I’d definitely stay in high-rise heavy downtown or at least looking over the river. While I’ve usually stayed at the not-so-sexy Holiday Inn University Center to be near my grandparents, my fancier relatives have stayed downtown at the Omni William Penn with its chandelier-dazzling lobby or taken in the sparkling view from the Sheraton Station.

This isn’t to say that my grandparents’ university neighborhood, Oakland, doesn’t have many charms.

Caliban Book Shop in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood

Drop into the spectacular used bookstore, Caliban Book Shop, adjacent to the Carnegie Mellon campus. Two overstuffed floors of dusty-page heaven, here you can snatch up recent fiction for a song or immerse yourself in decades’ worth of science, photography, history, and endlessly on. All this, and the kind, geeky staff is straight from the pages of Ghost World. What a gem.

One block past it is the top-notch Carnegie Museum of Art, with its often astounding Carnegie International exhibition that features some of the most gifted/bizarre artists from around the world.

One block past Caliban is the Carnegie Museum of History with its Beaux Arts architecture, incredibly detailed dioramas, and big, scary dinosaurs.

Phipps Conservatory

A few blocks behind the Museum is the beginning of woodsy Schenley Park and the gorgeous, Victorian Phipps Conservatory. There are hothouses full of orchids, picket fence gardens of dahlias, trickling fountains, and a sprawling, flower-dotted lawn for wandering; it even gets dolled up for Christmas, when green isn’t the easiest color to find. In 2007, we saw Dale Chihuly’s incredible glass garden here, but as of this writing the exhibit’s on chocolate. Throw in some red wine and a lounge chair, and I would never leave.

Walking to the Sky

Be sure to cruise by Carnegie Mellon’s campus to check out their controversial lawn sculpture, Jonathan Borofsky’s Walking to the Sky. For every one person who likes this colorful cluster of painted people watching/climbing a metal spire into nowhere, there are at least 100 who think it’s a bonafide piece of crap. For the record, my grampa just loved it, and I’d have to agree.

For one of your lunches, head over to Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill and have some delicious Mediterranean at the Alibaba Grill. Especially good are the hummus, mohomara walnut dip, fatoosh salad, and my mom’s delicious favorite, the lentil/onion mujaddara.

Wander down Forbes to Pittsburgh’s comfort shoe mecca, Little’s. The women in my family will get misty-eyed and emotional about Little’s, and both Adam and I have scored some real footwear finds here. A full-service shop with no lack of salespeople, there’s almost nothing they can’t either fit you with or find for you.

If you’re a woman and somehow didn’t find your dream shoes at Little’s, console yourself with a trip across to the street to see some beautiful locally-made jewelry at Cheryl W. You know, just to see.

Shadyside is where you’ll find the swankiest shopping along its cobblestoned streets, but I like it for the Victorian houses on either side of Walnut Street. Visit the Frick Art & Historical Center, the elegant former home and art collection of Henry Clay Frick, the coal baron who joined forces with steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and took over the Pittsburgh steel and railroad industries. Stop in to Sunnyledge for tea, or grab a salad upstairs at Walnut Grill.

Just up the street a few blocks, at South Highland and Alder, is Casbah, a hands-down amazing restaurant you’d sooner expect to find in a big foodie town like Los Angeles or Chicago.  (After all, Pittsburgh, for all its charms, is better known for hot dogs and Iron City Beer, preferably consumed in the bleachers at a Steelers game.) Casbah is elegant and dramatic, with an enclosed front patio and two floors of artfully tile-covered rooms lit by Italian glass lamps and sconces. The dining room downstairs is bordered by a glassed-in wine cellar, and they’ll happily offer tastings from their extensive by-the-glass list.  Go for dinner and try a cheese tasting, sumac crusted sea scallops, any of their salads, filet mignon, baklava, and/or olive oil gelato.

Mylar pillows room at the Andy Warhol Museum

Head over to the multi-floor Andy Warhol Museum. A native son of Pittsburgh, Warhol’s museum mostly explores the more famous periods of his life, featuring screen tests for his 60s movies and celebrity photos from the 70s and 80s, but our favorite part is a room full of dozens of silver mylar balloons, floating around for no reason whatsoever.

Warhol’s parents were immigrants from a small Eastern European community who were then known as Ruthenians. They attended the ornate St. John’s Chrysoston Byzantine Catholic Church at 506 Saline Street; the rich iconography here has been said to have heavily influenced the artist’s style.

Go downtown to ogle sky-rises of glass and (fittingly for this town) steel, and to visit the Carnegie Science Center. All the way upstairs is its spectacular Miniature Railroad & Village. Kudos to my Aunt Kari for sharing it with me; it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

This model reproduction of Pittsburgh through the ages, begun in 1920, is a staggering 83′ x 30′ layout in an entire room. It includes a circus, farms, old downtown, a steel refinery, boats sailing on rivers made of real water, 100,000 trees handmade made from pieces of dried hydrangea, wire and glue, and an antique replica of Forbes Field filled with about 35,000 “fans” made of painted Q-tips. If you express a little interest, a docent might even take you behind the scenes to the fix-it room to see all the materials used. The lighting, movement, detail and even representations of different seasons make this a perfect place to while away an hour.

Just before sunset, hop on the nearby Allegheny Bridge and cross the river to the South Side.

The Dusquesne Incline

Park by the Duquesne Incline and head to the top of Mount Washington for the best view in Pittsburgh. From here you can see several bridges, the downtown skyscrapers, the fountain on Point State Park, and the famous Three Rivers (the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela). Walk up Grandview Avenue to have dinner at one of the hill’s special occasion restaurants and keep the view going until dark. (I’ve only personally dined at LeMont, which is decked out like Vegas in the 50s but has both good food and what’s rumored to be the best view on Mt. Washington.) The Incline runs until 12:45 am, so there’s no real rush to head back down.

On a Saturday before 5pm, hit the former warehouse district (along the Allegheny, just north of downtown between 11th and 33rd Streets) known as The Strip to taste the city’s variety of ethnic foods, learn about Pittsburgh’s history, and tour the nearby design district.

Between 16th and 22nd Streets, either walk around by yourselves to look at food markets selling Italian, Polish and Caribbean specialties and more, or sign up for a Pittsburgh Strip Food Tour to help guide you.

Check out the (endlessly named) Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center to learn where P-burgh has been since the 1700s and where it’s heading now.

16th Street along the mile-long Strip marks the start of the 1800s neighborhood of Lawrenceville and the 16:62 Design Zone, a 56-block arts district that runs from the 16th Street Bridge to the 62nd Street Bridge. Many local artists have their studios here, and it’s a great place to order an art or design object custom- made. In case you’re still hungry after The Strip, Lawrenceville is full of small ethnic restaurants.

One of the most popular places for a meal in Lawrenceville is the Church Brew Works (3525 Liberty Avenue) for peirogies and a whole lot more. Beer in church? It’s like its own punchline, but with a soaring ceiling and an altar.

The Mattress Factory's Mannequin Room

On the North Side of Pittsburgh, in a not-so-great neighborhood near very little else in this guide, is a unique art gallery called The Mattress Factory. Two buildings’ worth of very modern art in an old mattress factory and a former Italian bakery, highlights here are a mirrored, polka-dotted room full of mannequins, and a basement room full of globes painted with forest and mountain landscapes, hanging from the ceiling like an elaborate science fair project. Go take a look at this place — it’ll blow your mind.

Before you leave town, climb aboard a steamboat in the Gateway Clipper Fleet to see the rivers up close. It’s a little cheesy, a bit of Americana, educational, and oddly romantic.

Sort of like…Pittsburgh.

Travels With Two