This story was written in collaboration with Forbes Finds. Forbes Finds covers products and experiences we think you’ll love. Featured products are independently selected and linked to for your convenience. If you buy something using a link on this page, Forbes may receive a small share of that sale.
Getty
It was the Lenape, a Native American tribe, that actually founded what became Philadelphia in its felicitous delta between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. The Lenape hospitably made room for William Penn, who then advertised his imagined paradise of freethinkers to the religious minorities in the rest of Europe.
It unleashed a trickle that became a flood, which accounts for much of Philadelphia’s, and our country’s, robust egalitarian structure today. It’s not an accident that the first and second Continental Congresses were convened here, or that they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution basically down the street. It’s a welcoming town.
Here are some must-visit destinations in Philadelphia:
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Cris Zuin via Getty
Of course, you’re welcome to do your Rocky Balboas up and down the steps at dawn as much as you like, but the place itself does have some world-class treasures, and they’re very much worth a visit. So why not buy a ticket and walk inside? Opened in 1928 in its magnificent site along the river, the Philadelphia Museum of Art holds some 240,000 objects in its collections ranging across every possible medium and era, with an emphasis on 19th- and 20th-century European masters: Cezanne, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Picasso, Brancusi—and most famously Duchamp. After a turn with the masters, retire to the nearby Rittenhouse hotel’s welcoming bar for a civilized drink.
Independence Hall
Getty
Owned and administered by the National Park Service, Independence Hall and its outlying sites are the repository of a good portion of pre-Revolutionary history. As the first and best of the meeting places for the Continental Congress, the building, built in the Georgian style between 1730 and 1751, was where our very earliest government debated, framed and signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. (Cooler than that it does not get.) Also administered by the Park Service are the Franklin courtyard where the Founding Father’s house and print shop were located, and the house where Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Carpenter’s Hall and the Liberty Bell. ( The Kimpton Monaco is within walking distance of all of it.) Tours are only available by booking in advance and are free—and there’s a modest $1 handling fee.
The Barnes Foundation
Barnes Foundation
It’s estimated to be a $20 billion collection—yes, you read that correctly—of classic Impressionists, Modernists and other great masters amassed by the quirky chemist Albert C. Barnes and his Parisian dealer in the 1920s and ’30s, when the getting was good. Time was, out on Philadelphia’s Main Line in Merion, that the eccentric Barnes Foundation would only allow visitors into the collection of the classic Impressionists and Modernists for a day and a half per week, with a 500-person cap on those who requested a visit. After years of legal disputes, the Foundation moved to a new building not far from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and threw open the doors in 2012, which allowed the stunning Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso and Modigliani works that Dr. Barnes collected to be seen by a greater audience. The Logan Hotel in Philadelphia’s Logan Square is a short walk from the Barnes.
Shofuso House And Garden In Fairmount Park
Courtesy of the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden
The serenely beautiful Shofuso house and garden—whose name translates to “pine breeze villa”—was designed and built by Japanese masters in 1953 for exhibit in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was moved in 1954 for permanent exhibition to the Japanese gardens of Philadelphia’s huge Fairmount Park on the western bank of the Schuylkill. The initiative for getting the house to America was that of architect Philip Johnson and John D. Rockefeller III. It’s done in the shoin-zukuri style of the 17th century, and its assembly was overseen by an 11th-generation master carpenter, Heizaemon Ito, whose family had worked for the shoguns of that era. Ito used joinery rather than structural nails, as per tradition. The garden itself is a masterpiece. (Reminder: as in Japan, and especially in 17th century Japan, shoes must be removed to enter the house. Wear a good pair of socks. Bare feet are not permitted.) If you are on an architecture tour of Philadelphia, Sir Norman Foster’s Four Seasons is a great hotel pick.
The Philadelphia Canoe Club
Sophie James via Getty
One benefit that Philadelphians draw from its geography is that they have always used their rivers. Boathouse Row is the charming row of local crew clubs on the lower Schuylkill, at the confluence with the Delaware, where the young university and club coxswains and their crews practice in their sculls. Further upstream, at the Schuylkill’s confluence with Wissahickon Creek, is the Philadelphia Canoe Club, where canoes, kayaks and paddleboards and the lessons thereon, are available. After a hard day of canoeing, sink into the cushy embrace of the Ritz-Carlton near City Hall.
The Manayunk Brewery
Andrea Sachs/The Washington Post via Getty
If you need a refreshing afternoon or evening out of town, think about Manayunk, and specifically, its craft brewery. Since October 1996, this craft brewery has operated out of a renovated woolen mill that still belongs to the same family, the Renners, right on the Schuylkill at the very river end of Main Street, Manayunk, which is in a row of charming little suburbs north west of town. The brewery hosts concerts, has a pizza oven that’s the centerpiece of their restaurant, and even also does kayak lessons from its dock, which has been a portage since the mill was there. (It also has a great selection of IPAs and other brews.) The brewery is open on weekends until 2 a.m. Book an Uber to drive you back to the Kimpton Palomar hotel’s 24/7 fitness center to work off the beer.
The Rodin Museum
John Greim via Getty
When Philadelphians do something, they do it right. This Beaux-Arts jewel box houses arguably the greatest collection of Rodin’s work outside Paris. In the late 1920s, the city envisioned that the axis of Benjamin Franklin Parkway would be the showpiece civic space. As part of that, philanthropist Jules Mastbaum built the Rodin museum for the city, designed by French architect Paul Cret, with the formal gardens surrounding it by landscape architect Jacques Gréber. Rodin—whose starkly emotional style revolutionized the art world in its day—might just have been pleased with these surroundings. After spending a morning with this French master, the Sofitel Philadelphia’s La Liberté will amplify the lesson with a presentation of the French contribution to gastronomy.