Eastern State Pen

Today's photos

I couldn't seem to get going this morning and we didn't leave the hotel until gone 11 o'clock. First, we had to catch the subway about 4 stops to Fairmount, which is a lot quicker than catching the bus in this city as the traffic is a nightmare. There was a place that I found called Rybread that does gourmet sandwiches so we got a couple of turkey ones in there, it's not cheap here, but the sandwiches are tasty and it was good to get out the heat and humidity of the day for a bit.

As today is my birthday, I had only planned one main place to go and that was the Eastern State Penitentiary, this is an old prison that shut down in the '70s and was left to rot for about 30 years before they gradually started to bring it back into use as a tourist attraction. At the moment there is about half of it that is safe to walk around, but you can see into the derelict parts which always fascinates me how places decay over the years. It's a bit expensive to go in at $16 each but it's well worth the money I thought. The cells seem fairly roomy as well, but as today was a very hot day it must have been really bad to be locked up in there years ago, they even had a death row here but I think they took people elsewhere to fry them.

Next on the list and just across the road was Philly Flavours the ice cream parlour and although we had to wait for ages for them to do 2 tubs of ice cream it was nice. Now we had to hang around a bit longer than planned as the buses here have massive gaps in the service and you don't want to stand in this heat for too long with today having a real feel of 42 centigrade. I'm so glad my phone works here as if there is a massive gap in the service you can stay where you are and out of the heat.

Just down the road from the ice cream parlour is a pub called The Bishops Collar so caught the bus 3 stops to get there, we could have walked it, but we have 56 trips to get through on the weekly transit pass which isn't going to happen I think plus it was too hot. We only had one drink in here before walking over to the Fairmount Waterworks Museum but by now it was 4:30 and it closes at 5 but we will be back up this way tomorrow. 

Just round the corner from here is the front of the art museum and the steps that Rocky famously ran up in the movie, (at 50 I had to walk to the top, but I made it) there is even a bronze statue at the side you can have your picture taken with and they employ someone who will take your picture with it for free if you want.

It was time to call it a day now and low and behold we just missed a bus, that's a 20-minute wait. Arrrr.

We were back at the hotel before 6 tonight and a relief to get out of the heat and humidity, by 8 o'clock there was torrential rain just like last night, but we have to go out and get something to eat yet from Dunkies, at least that's only across the road.