From city hall, we continued walking northeast down Benjamin Franklin Parkway towards the 4th of July festivities. It’s nearly a mile long stretch of roadway, lined by hundreds of international flags in a salute to the statesman, and passes by many of the famous museums in the city before it ends at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (seen in the distance above).
The first impressive sight was the Swann Fountain in Logan Circle, a place where most of the city buildings end and the road turns into much more of a park & museum place.
Lots of churches, lots of flowers & gardens, lots of gorgeous buildings in this strip of Philly.
We made it down to the WaWa Welcome America Festival. We soon realized we were there about 8 hours too early. It was a bit different than most other festivals we’d been too- no admission, no alcohol!
We did catch a local version of a strong-man competition, which was oddly amusing and entertaining, to say the least!
There were a few bleachers set up, so we used the entertainment to sit in the shade for a while watching these men attempt various stunts.
The festival didn’t really kick off until the evening, so we decided to head back to our hotel & rest up for the big 4th of July show that night. We passed by many of the museums on the way back & there were some great sculptures that decorated the front lawns at several of them.
I loved this old building in the midst of all the newer, fancier one surrounding it. The attention to detail & patterns were so unique and wonderful.
We had a really hard time finding a restaurant that was open. We were VERY hot & hungry, but luckily found a place to get H’s much lusted-after apple pie for America’s birthday.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Headed to check out some wineries around Houston this afternoon.
[...] Game, PNC Park, Driving to Philadelphia, Philadelphia City Hall & Love Park, walked down Ben Franklin Parkway before the 4th of July Festivities, walking around Downtown, the Historic District, Independence Hall [...]