Attractions in Philadelphia

     Situated between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, Philadelphia was the "Cradle of the Revolution." The American Revolution, of course. You can explore the nascence of modern democracy in the Old City at the Independence National Historical Park --it's America's most historic square mile and features more than a dozen separate sites, including Independence Hall and Liberty Bell Pavilion.
     Begin your sightseeing itinerary with the Independence Visitor Center. At the center, you'll find orientation exhibits, daily listings of area events, informative touch screen computer kiosks and tickets.
     Continue your excursion at the adjacent Liberty Bell Pavilion, where the 2,000 pound Liberty Bell is housed. In 1776, its peals rang in the birth of a new nation, and you can stand close enough to read its inscription: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…." You can also eyeball the bell's famous crack--the one that silenced it, but did not dim its historical relevance. Shortly after the Liberty Bell cracked, McGillin's Olde Ale House was established and is currently the oldest continuously operating tavern in Philadelphia.
     Only by going through security and walking through the Liberty Bell Center can you enter into Independence Hall's surrounding area. Awash in Colonial charm, the building retains its simple architectural beauty despite throngs of visitors--and there's no denying that the founding fathers' revolutionary spirit lingers here. This is the hall where the delegates of the Thirteen British Colonies met to debate and approve the Declaration of Independence, and where the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution were drafted and adopted.
     Speaking of the United States' Constitution--"We the People…."--it's a mere four pages long, but the document is the world's most famous blueprint for democracy. You'll see an original version in the park's 160,000-square-foot National Constitution Center. This interactive museum chronicles more than two centuries of constitutional history with some 100 exhibits. You can don a black robe and sit on the U.S. Supreme Court bench, raise your right hand and take the presidential oath, step into a speakeasy during Prohibition or listen to one of FDR's fireside chats in a 1940s living room.
     Formerly a county court house, Congress Hall served as the first home to Congress, with the House of Representatives meeting on the first floor, appropriately called the "Lower House," and the Senate meeting upstairs, the "Upper House." On the second floor of this attraction, you'll view the elegant meeting chamber and various committee rooms. The building is frozen in time, looking as it did when John Adams was inaugurated there in 1797.
     With its thick Doric columns, the Second Bank of United States was once the paradigm for designs of American finance buildings. Today, the bank features a different kind of currency: Art. It's home to the park's "People of Independence" exhibit, a veritable 18th-century celebrity roster. The portrait gallery includes 185 paintings of Colonial and Federal leaders, including many incredible works by Charles Willson Peale.
     At Christ Church, sit in one of the pews where Betsy Ross, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington prayed. The church, adjacent to the park and also in Old City, is a must-see for architecture buffs; the 1727 structure typifies early Georgian style.
     After a busy day of touring, save time for the nighttime Lights of Liberty Show. This multimedia light-and-sound experience tells how and why Americans revolted against the British. Wearing a digital headset with 3-D sound, you walk through Independence National Historical Park as towering images appear on buildings where the actual events occurred. The show immerses you in the drama of the Revolutionary War as it happened--a war scene with British redcoats, a mob protesting the Stamp Act, the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. It's almost like being there.
     Fairmount Park is the next stop on the itinerary. The park's bucolic acreage extends along both sides of the Schuylkill and is woven with miles of scenic drives, walks, bicycle routes and horse trails. It's one of the world's largest municipal parks--several million trees grow along its paths. Within Fairmount's bounds, you can also visit numerous historic sites and museums.
     One of the park's museums, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, houses the third largest public art collection in the United States. You'll recognize the Parthenon-like exterior and steps from the famous scene in "Rocky." The museum boasts collections of Renaissance, Impressionist, Asian, contemporary and decorative art, including the large "Bathers" by Paul Cézanne, the infamous "Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (Large Glass)" by Marcel Duchamp and an entire gallery devoted to native son Thomas Eakins. Upstairs are more than 80 rooms devoted to other cultures, décors and times, from temple to cloister to boudoir.
     A blast for kids of all ages, the Franklin Institute Science Museum offers four floors of interactive exhibits. There's a walk-through heart, an exhibit on the life of Ben Franklin, an IMAX theater and a planetarium. Try the Sports Challenge, which offers a climbing wall, a pitching cage and virtual reality displays. Other activities include SkyBike, a bicycle that balances riders on a 28-foot-high cable; the Train Factory's 350-ton locomotive; and Space Command's orbital research station. This museum gets high marks for participation.
     Students of social change and fans of spooky places will be drawn to the Eastern State Penitentiary. Inside the Gothic, castlelike building, the humane concept of solitary confinement was instituted under the Quakers in the 1830s. This 11-acre prison was developed as a state-of-the-art incarceration facility: it had flushing toilets before the White House. Now it's ghostly, with everything frozen in time--even bed sheets and shoes were left behind when the penitentiary was abandoned in the 1960s. Visitors must wear hard hats inside its crumbling walls.
     If you've always wanted to go on an architectural dig, stop at The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. A 13-ton granite sphinx sits at the entrance to the Egyptian Galleries, where artifacts range from cat mummies and deity sculptures to tomb walls carved with ancient hieroglyphics. The museum's multi-gallery collection includes nearly a million objects from around the world, including a Navajo house, an Inuit fishing boat, Roman glass, Greek vases and funerary artifacts.
     In the suburbs of Philadelphia, you'll find one of the world's most celebrated and notorious art collections, The Barnes Foundation. Once secretive and almost impossible to see (many art historians and critics were, until recently, refused admission), the museum is finally open to the public. The paintings themselves are wondrous--more than 180 Renoirs, dozens of Cézannes and Matisses, works by Degas, Manet, Seurat and Van Gogh--but so are the unconventional displays. Masterpieces are hung symmetrically by size and paired with such quirky objects as Amish chests, antique tools, tribal masks and Navajo rugs. The effect is wholly charming.
     Housed in a converted 19th-century gristmill, the Brandywine River Museum in Chadd's Ford features a large collection of paintings by the celebrated family Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth, especially, captured the extremes of the Brandywine Valley--pastoral rolling hills, deep fallen snow, churning rivers and hardy residents. Works by Andrew's father, the illustrator, N.C., and by Andrew's son, Jamie (a Realist, like his father), are also on display. The collection includes more than 3,000 American landscapes, still life paintings and illustrations.
     The exquisitely maintained grounds of Longwood Gardens were once the pride of industrialist Pierre S. du Pont. Covering 1,000 acres, the gardens are landscaped with fountains and more than 11,000 types of flowers, trees and plants. Wander through formal knot gardens, an Italian water garden, the eight outdoor "rooms" of Peirce's Woods and vast heated greenhouses, lush with exotic blooms.
     The proper way to conclude a trip to Philadelphia is with stops at the Valley Forge National Historical Park and Washington Crossing Historic Park, where the United States battled for independence.
     In beautiful Valley Forge, it's hard to imagine the Continental Army suffering through a terrible winter, but during the lean, cruel months of 1777-1778, some 12,000 troops were camped here. The welcome center's exhibit, "Determined to Persevere," uses Revolutionary War artifacts to tell the story of General Washington's army and its struggles.
     At Washington Crossing Historic Park, you'll see the spot where boats spirited the "man-who-could-not-tell-a-lie" and his troops to battle across the Delaware. Skirmishes at Trenton and Princeton were resounding victories for the Continental Army--turning the tide in the War for Independence.