PHILADELPHIA—City of Brotherly Love

Didn’t take long to get from Atlantic City to Philadelphia- about 1 ½ hours.  We were joined by tour guide, Steve.  He gave us a great deal of history in a short amount of time and he has an accent that takes some getting used to (unlike Nadine from NYC- who was very easy to understand)   

 
 
Across from where the bus was parked to let us have a rest break is the largest U.S. Mint which makes 32 million coins per year.

William Penn was owed by the King of England, and received  46,000 square miles of land in the “New World” as payment.  He sold off most of it and became a very wealthy man.  His guiding principles were “freedom of religion” and “freedom of speech”  Pennsylvania was the only place under British rule where a Catholic Mass could be celebrated legally.

Philadelphia was inundated with school field trips today and they were everywhere—not unruly particularly but just EVERYWHERE.  We drove by Betsy Ross’s house, heard her “story” and some folks planned to go back for a better look.  

We were told that George Washington asked her to make the flag (she was an upholsterer) with 6 pointed stars and 5 pointed ones were easier, so that’s what she did.

Seems like everything started by Franklin in Philadelphia—libraries, fire departments, post office, hospital, ice cream (not Franklin, but Bass- flavor was tomato), sales receipts (Wannamaker) first Holocaust Museum (1964)

We stopped at the Phil. Museum of Art—made famous by the steps that Rocky Balboa ran up training for his fight in ROCKY.  Several of our folks walked fast up and down the stairs.

Other quirky Phil. Facts

There are more houses of worship here than any other American city.

More people walk to work per capita than any other American city

The originator of the Monopoly board game is from Phil.

In 1780 Pennsylvania abolished slavery—altho Washington brought his  from Mt. Vernon to his Philadelphia residence.

A modern law was enacted in Phil called the ” % for art law” which mandates that a percentage of funds spent on building or renovating a building must be spent on outdoor art--- hence all the sculptures and statues.

I mentioned earlier that our bus driver, Stan was very capable and a friendly person to be around.  He got a call from his boss at Diamond Tours telling him that he needed to switch to another tour group.  The other group’s driver had a death in the family and they were headed to Canada.  Stan has a passport and the other available drivers don’t.  So we’ll be “breaking in” another bus driver tomorrow.  Sorry to see him go, he felt like one of us.

We had lunch in a fancy upscale mall which used to be a warehouse

After lunch we went back to the visitor's center where we watched folks in period costume.

 

The gentleman  I am  talking to  (R) was mending an antique coat.  And we discussed how he planned to repair the jacket.  Interesting.

We’ll be leaving for Baltimore, MD tomorrow.—and a new hotel, yea!