Some Blog Site

This is the third of a three-part series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to OBX here.

Day 6:
Mostly driving. Made it from OBX to Pittsburgh.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 7:
We spent the day touring Pittsburgh. I heard that Pittsburgh is very pedestrian friendly and one does not need a car to get around, so I picked a hotel downtown and left the car in the parking lot during our stay.

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we walked out the front door and headed toward the river, and then walked over the bridge to get to Station Square. It was a few blocks of walking, it felt to me like a good way to start the day and get a feel for Pittsburgh.

One of the things I noticed from the bridge was that Station Square has boats you can rent, in particular there were tiki boats, if you wanted to have a party on the river. I would not think of Pittsburgh as a tropical theme, so these boats looked a bit out of place.

Our first stop was the famous incline railway. We went up at the Monongahela incline, walked west along the road (stopping at some lookouts), then down at the Duquesne incline.

At the bottom of the incline, we caught a bus back into town to find a place to eat lunch. There were too many options, so we had to sit and think about who wanted what and where to go to make everyone happy. There is a nice place to sit and think, in the middle of Pittsburgh: PPG Place

I really liked that bit of architecture. And the fountain doing fountainy stuff was an interesting diversion. We decided on what we wanted, so we walked a block over to Market Square. Unfortunately, much of it was under construction so it was not what we expected. But most of the restaurants were open so we settled on Primanti Bros because that’s what you do in Pittsburgh. I thought it was overrated, and I would go somewhere else next time.

After lunch, we took the free part of the Pittsburgh subway to go to the north shore. I had tossed around the idea of taking a tour of the football stadium (I’ll always know it as Three Rivers Stadium. I’m pretty sure it’s not that anymore but I’m not going to look up what it’s called because you all know what I’m talking about anyway) but ended up going with a visit to the National Aviary. It’s just north of the stadium so we still got to see that part of the city.

One of the fun parts of the museum was the penguin periscope. There’s a tunnel (meant for kids, but flexible adults could go if they wanted) that ends up in a clear enclosure inside the penguin habitat. It was a fun touch.

But for those who don’t want to go in the tunnel, you can stand at the display window and get just as close to the penguins, like this.

After the aviary, we didn’t head right back to subway but rather went down to the riverside. There wasn’t too much there, and the group was not up for a leisurely walk along the riverside since we just had a healthy walk to and from the aviary. But I wanted to see the water steps so we walked along the river to that and then back to the subway.

And then back to our hotel for the evening. We were at the Drury Plaza hotel downtown. It was interesting because it used to be a financial institution.

And here is the main lobby area where we had breakfast and evening snacks. The hotel also had a fun open-air deck on one of the upper floors, but I didn’t get a photo of it.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 8:
Drive home all day.

Then End.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.