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