Philadelphia

Took the long walk back to the bus stop this morning and waited for the bus – I managed to get the bag on my back like a rucksack and balanced it with my day sack so it wasn’t too bad. We then took the bus back into the town centre and just had a short walk to find the Apple Hostel in the centre of town. We checked in and dropped the bag in the bag store as we were too early to check in and having been loaded with things to do/see we headed off into town.
The first place we went to see was the Eastern State Penitentiary which was excellent. You use an audio guide to wander around the part ruined grounds of the prison, with the narration given in many places by the voices of previous inmates and warders of the prison there are also art installations at various places around the site which gives it a slightly surreal feel to some of them. The nice thing is that it has not been fully restored which gives it a very eerie feel in places. Al Capone was incarcerated here and his cell has been recreated to show how it was made for him which was quite luxurious compared to the general cells for the vast majority of inmates. When the prison was first built it was designed around a central hub and the blocks were arranged as spokes off the centre so that the chief warder could keep an eye on the whole site from on place however as the capacity was increased other blocks have been added which fit in between the others and are not visible from the centre. In the early days the prisoners were all kept in solitary confinement and could spend years not seeing another person even the warders wore socks over their shoes so the inmates would not be aware that anyone else was there. A very harsh place to be. After the Penitentiary we walked over to the Museum of Art, not to go in but because it was made famous for the steps that Rocky ran up! Mark recreated the event while I filmed him on his camera, as did lots of other people every couple of minutes. There are two bronze feet marks that mark the spot where Rocky stood at the top and a large bronze statue of the famous pose down at the bottom to the side of the steps (it used to be at the top but they moved it for some reason). Back into the town centre now for a well earned beer and we found a small bar that had some local lager but it wasn’t too good but the barman directed us to a craft beer bar and we sampled some rather good bottled beers from all over the world. By now it was getting on for 5 oclock so we headed back to the hostel by the way of the SOS Philly Steak Sandwich shop for some food. The Philly steak sandwich – which it the trademark food of the town comprises a sub type roll with thin cut griddled steak covered with American cheese and relish, nice but nothing amazing. Back to the hostel and we joined a group of other hostellers on a ‘ghost’ tour of the city centre, which was really just a slightly cheesy walk around the town centre pointing out various places where people had it the past been killed or died in salubrious circumstances.