Category Archive: Northeast

Fall Travel Getaway Guide: Providence, Rhode Island

Fall is a wonderful time to plan a getaway. It’s shoulder, or value season, in many destinations, and that usually means fewer people, better availability, and lower prices, while the weather is still reasonably good.   Another day exploring Providence. A photo posted by Mary Jo Manzanares (@travelingwithmj) on May 4, 2016 at 7:04am PDT It’s easy to think of Providence, Rhode Island, as just part of the massive Boston area, but it deserves consideration in its own right. This capital city is one of the oldest in the United States, and its own special flavors and culture. With a population of under 200,000, it is a big (not huge) city, yet still keeps a small town heart. Here’s my guide to a fall getaway in Providence. While some of these recommendations are good all year round, some are quintessentially […]

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Postcard from City Hall, Philadelphia

Philadelphia’s City Hal is a behemoth of a masonry complex and is an impressive part of the city’s skyline. Look closely, that’s a statue of William Penn on the top. The building is listed as a National Historic Landmark.

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Jersey Shore: Lucy the Elephant

I love offbeat and quirky kinds of places – for just the reasons that they are offbeat and quirky. I’ve been known to drive out of my way to see the “biggest,” “smallest,” “world’s only,” “oldest” thing or place or whatever. Why not?! Although the Hurricane Sandy did a lot of damage on the Jersey shore, it didn’t harm one of the shore’s iconically quirky attractions – Lucy the Elephant. Lucy is a six story, 90 ton elephant made of wood and tin sheeting. She was put up 1881 to attract tourism and development to the south Atlantic City area, and while she was architecturally unique at the time, she soon became merely the first of several zoomorphic (animal-shaped) buildings. Did you even know there was such a thing a zoomorphic architecture? Since she was originally constructed, Lucy has been a […]

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Visiting the 8 Ivy League Campuses

The Ivies.  What started out as eight private colleges and universities forming an athletic conference, is now a term used to represent eight of the most elite, prestigious, and expensive schools in the world.  With the exception of one, all of the schools were founded during the Colonial era.  The eight Ivy League schools are: Brown University Columbia University Cornell University Dartmouth College Harvard University Princeton University University of Pennsylvania Yale University With college visits right around the corner for many families, let’s take a look at what you can expect in a visit to the ivy league schools – besides the expected academics. Brown – Providence, Rhode Island.  A small university in a small town-feel city, Brown offers guided and self-guided tours of its campus.  Downtown Providence is full of architecture dating back to the 19th century, along with […]

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Philadelphia Freedom: Visiting the Liberty Bell Center

With its historical significance and message of freedom, a visit to see the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia will be on most history buffs travel list.  The Liberty Bell is one of the iconic symbols of the American Revolutions, and since then has served as a symbol of independence, freedom, and liberty. The bell was originally cast in London and designed to be used at the Pennsylvania State House.  It cracked soon after its arrival in Philadelphia.  Local craftsmen cast a new one and it was installed in the State House in 1753.  Weighing a little over a ton, the bell rang many times as the official bell of the Pennsylvania State House.  It tolled many public announcements, including the opening of the 1774 First Continental Congress and after the 1775 Battle of Lexington and Concord.  But perhaps the Liberty Bell’s […]

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Rocky Balboa, Art & Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is as important to the City of Brotherly Love as it was to boxer Rocky Balboa, the unlikely here of the movie Rocky and its sequels.  Rocky, played by Sylvester Stallone, trained for his first big fight by running up the steps of the museum.  While a visit to the museum will usually find someone running up the steps, known as the Rocky Steps, merely walking up them gives you entrance to a very special world of art and culture.  And yes, there’s plenty of people grasping their hands overhead in the Rocky stance! The museum was founded in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition and opened to the public the following year.  The current building, quasi-Greek revival in design, was opened in 1928.  The museum houses impressive collections of paintings from Renaissance masters, […]

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