With the premise that we must see the current Matisse in the Thirties exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, even though none of us is a huge Matisse fan, I devised a mini-vacation to Philly for our little family. Christmas in Philadelphia, we were assured by tourism sites, is full of lights, vibrancy, and shopping opportunities.
We’d been to New York City at Christmastime in the past, and it was a big, crowded mess around Times Square and Rockefeller Center. Exciting, buzzing with activity, but a bit too frenetic for me. Downtown Philly had a lot of energy, but a much more relaxed and laid-back excitement. It seemed more full of locals than tourists.
It helped that everything we set out to see downtown was very compact, within an easy walking distance of the downtown hotel we picked. And, even though Philly has a sort of rough, gritty reputation for those of us from “more civilized” Washington, DC, even after dark we felt perfectly safe.
Here is our Philly travelogue in photos and captions. Thanks, Philly, for sharing your exuberant holiday spirit with our family. Here’s hoping everyone finds and keeps their own inspiration for a safe, happy and healthy holiday and carries that feeling into 2023!
We arrived in time to catch the four o’clock light and sound show at Macy’s, which is right across from City Hall. People get there early and camp out to get the best view from the first or second floor. (So go early and just wait!) It’s less than 15 minutes but they cram a lot of lights, projections and storyline (narrated by Julie Andrews no less), and of course the famous Wanamaker Organ, which is this time of year mostly behind the color-changing Christmas tree. Next stop, since by then we were really hungry, was Chinatown. We’d scoped out a no frills noodle house with good reviews, and it didn’t disappoint. We had to take the dumplings we ordered with us, since our big bowls of noodle soup filled us up and fortified us for the next leg of the adventure. Franklin Square, not far from Chinatown, has a brief light show and a family vibe. In addition to the lights, you can play mini-golf or sit around a fire pit enjoying hot beverages. (Note the “kite and key” theme.)Back to the heart of downtown where City Hall is abuzz with activity, from a ferris wheel to an ice rink (where we stood, transfixed, watching the Zamboni groom the ice – what is it about that?) and lots more. One side of City Hall has a light show with imaginative interpretations of holiday songs. (This part reminded me more of a birthday cake than the holidays, but it was festive anyhow.)Nearby Love Park hosts sales stalls in their “authentic German Market.” (Bratwurst and sauerkraut, anyone?) It was fun to roam around checking out the holiday wares, and I especially liked the display of glass ornaments on offer. Reading Terminal Market, still going strong after opening its doors in 1893, was also a short walk from our hotel and the perfect place to find breakfast options before our Museum visit that suited all of our tastes. I picked this crepe with egg, cheese and veggies, while Steve had a really messy but yummy and healthy-looking vegan sandwich and M.E. chose Tom Kha soup from a Thai stall. Something for everyone! Okay, finally on to visiting Matisse. I liked these two interpretations of the Nice waterfront. (I got kind of sick of all the nudes in various iterations, large, small, and in between.) As I sat on a bench contemplating the similarities and differences of these two works, a mom and daughter (around 7 or 8) sitting next to me discussed the paintings. The mom asked the daughter which one she preferred and she had some interesting reasons for liking the one to the right, including that the green of the trees reminded her of guacamole. After we had our fill of Matisse, we split up and headed to see other art in this vast and varied museum. You could (and should) spend hours and hours here exploring the three floors of mostly European, American and Asian art. I headed to the Impressionists, but then wandered around the American and Asian art, encountering period rooms, decorative arts such as this collection of American glass pieces, and other wonders. I encountered several of the museum’s installations of reproduced temples, a Japanese tea house, and parts of Medieval churches, all very atmospheric. This 500 year old Chinese temple ceiling is incredibly intricate. I somehow happened upon this contemporary installation of lights, which seemed very holiday-ish given the time of year. Apparently, several museums have iterations by this Dutch artistic group (called Drift), and no two are quite the same. (And they do a lot of other cool stuff too.) According to their web site, “DRIFT manifests the phenomena and hidden properties of nature with the use of technology in order to learn from the Earth’s underlying mechanisms and to re-establish our connection to it.” What’s not to like about that?
