<p>So far on the list:</p>
<li> Historic district of Philadelphia</li>
<li> Phil’s </li>
</ol>
<p>:-)</p>
<p>P.S. Obscure question of D’s: Happen to know where in Providence You, Me and Irene was filmed?</p>
<p>Pat’s and the other place across the street suck for cheesesteaks. Don’t bother. Among the worst I have had.</p>
<p>its Pat, not Phil. And Geno’s. I haven’t heard them referred to as among the worst before. Interesting.</p>
<p>If you enjoy art museums, try to get tickets to the Barnes Collection in Philly. In Boston, the Isabel Gardner is unique, and MFA has a Sargent exhibit that I hope to see when we are there in August.</p>
<p>Being from NJ we had plenty of steak sandwich places around. I am sure there are some good ones in Philly but I was very disappointed after driving an hour out of our way just to try them.</p>
<p>Assuming this is for a summer trip, here’s an entirely subjective list of suggestions. No particular order except for #1, which is one of my favorite places on earth.</p>
<ol>
<li> SPAC <a href=“http://www.spac.org/[/url]”>http://www.spac.org/</a></li>
<li> Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame)</li>
<li> Corning </li>
<li> Niagara Falls</li>
<li> Lake Placid</li>
<li> A leisurely drive through the Finger Lakes region, enjoying the two-lane back roads, foliage, lakes, and beaver-dammed streams</li>
<li> Wineries/vineyards <a href=“http://www.roundthebend.com/nyswine.html[/url]”>http://www.roundthebend.com/nyswine.html</a></li>
</ol>
<p>My daughter just graduated from Brown, so we’ve spent a fair amount of time in Providence. What a great place! Do not miss the RISD museum on Benefit Street. They have an amazing collection-everything from Greek and Roman to Jackson Pollock. We love the John Brown House with its collection of furniture. The whole Eastside is magnificent, with beautiful homes and quaint streets, and it’s VERY hilly. Another fun thing is the Johnson and Wales museum, with a collection of cookware and kitchen items. It’s off the beaten track, but worth it. Waterfire takes place on many Saturday nights in the summer/fall. There are wood fires burning in cauldrons in the middle of the river, and everybody hangs out while music plays and street food vendors sell. There are dance floors set up at different spots with swing orchestras.
Foodwise, we love Andreas and Paragon on Thayer Street, Parkside Bistro on North Main and Rue D’Espoir on Hope Street. If you have extra bucks, Al Forno is wonderful too. Do not miss the Brown campus (sigh), we miss it already. Have fun!</p>
<p>The Corning Glass Museum, if you get that far. Probably nothing like that on this continent (unless you don’t like glass).</p>
<p>Yeah, Geno’s and Pat’s have really crummy cheesesteaks. But they are a scene. Big sociopolitical drama these days, too, since Geno’s is prominently displaying a sign that says “Welcome To America. Now Speak English.” (Doubly hilarious since there are about six words you are permitted to use when ordering cheesesteaks there, and only some of them are actually English. “Wit” – meaning “with onions” – and “Wiz” – meaning cheese whiz – are not standard English.) Also, non-Philadelphians will be impressed (albeit in different ways, depending on their inclinations) by Geno’s’ shrine to Danny Faulkner, the police officer killed by Mumia Abu Jamar.</p>
<p>Philadelphia: For cheesesteaks, currently, I like Tony Luke’s (or Tony Luke Jr.'s) or Steaks On South. The Art Museum is nice, especially the material culture part. Absolutely The Barnes (needs advance reservations – make them now). The street scenes in Old City (with a lot of historical buildings and cool restaurants/clubs), South Street (more touristy, but still fun), Main St. in Manayunk (what South Street used to be). The Italian Market – one of the last true functioning outdoor markets in the country. Reading Terminal Market – an indoor collection of food/lunch stands, and the one place to go for lunch if you’re here for one day (but you’ll have a hard time deciding what to eat). A dirt-cheap all-ages concert in the basement of the First Unitarian Church, one of the city’s secret delights (at least for kids).</p>
<p>Providence: I’ve never been there for it, but my wife swears by the fire-on-the-river thing.</p>
<p>The Corning Glass Museum is great, but not even remotely near anything.</p>
<p>If you go to Niagara Falls, make certain to bring ID for everyone and go to the Canadian side. Much nicer, and much better views (the Canadian falls are bigger and prettier, and you can’t see them from the US side, and you only get a side view of the US falls from the US side). Also, check out Niagara-on-the-Lake and try to get tickets to one of the Shaw Festival productions (almost uniformly great).</p>
<p>Philadephia Museum of Art —inside and out—then walk around it to the nearby Boat House Row area along the river adjacent to the historic Water Works with its new cafe. Philadelphia sections such as Old City–lots of night life and galleries and Elfreths Alley which is the oldest occupied street/lane in U.S., Society Hill for historic homes and charming cobblestone streets, and the Independence Hall area are all within blocks of one another. </p>
<p>Rittenhouse Square is a must to experience true Center City Phila. and any one of the outdoor cafes overlooking the park such as Rouge, for people watching.</p>
<p>We were planning a trip to Boston and I happenned to see a thread about a month ago on CC which mentionned the Duck Boat Tour so we did it. It was WONDERFUL. I think we enjoyed it even more than the kids did. H lived there for 15 years and even learned something about the city. Highly recommend it.</p>
<p>Buttermilk Falls (Ithaca) and the hike around it are the most memorable thing about our trip to visit Cornell. Well, all the gorges around Cornell are great too, but Buttermilk was very special and unusual. Just beautiful.</p>
<p>The Duck Boat Tour is a wonderful introduction to the city. If there are younger kids in tow, take them to the Boston Commons to look for the statues of ducklings as in “Make Way for Ducklings” and also the statue commemorating the Mass 54th regiment. Walk along the Freedom Trail.</p>
<p>Museums: The Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The latter is quirky and reflects the owner’s tastes. It was modelled after an Italian palazzo and has a wonderful indoor garden. The MIT museum is also a great hit with younger kids and those of a more technological bent. Lots of fun. The Glass Flowers exhibit at the Museum of Natural History at Harvard is also a big hit with tourists.</p>
<p>Faneuil Hall and the Quincy Market Very touristy nowadays, But Faneuil Hall still has wholesalers’ signs from ca. 1770s. </p>
<p>Some places to eat: Legal Seafoods for the best clam chowder )several locations). Helmand’s for Afghan food (the restaurant is owned by relatives of Karzai). It’s near Kendall Square and MIT. Pizzeria Regina in the Italian North End.</p>
<p>Barnes Foundation (Phila) is a lot of peachy nudes. But I’ve always liked the Art Museum. It’s been a long time since I did much in Phila, but we did go do the Valley Forge historical tour, which now has docents in costume “being” historical characters, which I enjoyed enormously.</p>
<p>In Boston, I would concur with seeing the Glass Flowers, they’re amazing and I try to see them every time I’m in Boston. I also like the MIT Museum, but since I’m a gnurd, that should probably be ignored. I go to Legal Seafoods for the lobster roll, but then I eat lobster roll any time it’s offered to me, including at McDonald’s in some parts of Maine. </p>
<p>Go sit in the outfield for part or all of a Red Sox game.</p>
<p>If you are interested in the Barnes Foundation be sure to look into tickets a month or so in advance (depending on the month).</p>
<p>I also love the glass flowers, but after ten minutes or so DH and DSs “got the idea”. 
(They left and looked at the “rocks”.)</p>
<p>
I don’t get that comment–at all. But I would agree with 1more that you need to reserve well ahead of time, it’s a very quirky place, much like Dr. Barnes was. It is a museum like no other, and I enjoyed taking my Paris cousin through–the one who had taken me through the Louvre so many times. She was blown away by it.</p>
<p>My daughter is in Providence right now, at a Brown pre-college session, and we just spent some time in Boston before going. The Bodies exhibit is starting at the Museum of Science on July 30th. We also liked the Duckboat tour. There is an absolutely lovely exhibition at the MFA right now, “Americans in Paris”, that really illuminates the era when American artists were flocking to France, and what their lives, and their experience of French culture,were like–really wonderful. </p>
<p>I loved doing the Freedom Trail with her–it really brings home the experience of the Revolutionary War. </p>
<p>My daughter loved Newbury Street in the evening, when everyone is dining at sidewalk cafes and the stores are open. We had a wonderful time in the North End on a Saturday night–such a lively, fun neighborhood. Also the concerts on the Charles River at the Hatch Shell…<a href=“http://www.mass.gov/dcr/events/hatch.pdf[/url]”>http://www.mass.gov/dcr/events/hatch.pdf</a></p>
<p>For Providence, I didn’t see much of the city but the Brown campus is very pretty. The Providence Place Mall has every store teenagers love, it seems. My daughter recently said she ate at Fire and Ice there and loved it. She also loved their trip to the beaches and Newport, but don’t know if you have time for side excursions while there.</p>
<p>Well, Driver, we may have to agree to disagree about the Barnes Foundation. It took on the ritualistic nature of a pilgrimage when I was in high school down the street (“Have you been yet?” “No, we’re scheduled for the third Tuesday of April at 10:15.”) and I found it boring and annoying when I did finally go–and all I remember of it is the peachy nudes. I also dislike the art at the Gardner Museum in Boston for much the same reasons–although I had a membership there for several years when I lived a few blocks away, because I love the garden and the courtyard there.</p>
<p>dmd–you owe yourself another shot at Barnes. When you were in HS down the street (you went to Episcopal?) the Barnes was still in its utterly-bizarre mode. It is now merely eccentric–a big improvement. But as to content of the collection, no, peachy nudes it is not what I would take away from the experience (that memory may be a function of your age at the time?). You owe it to yourself to see it again.</p>
<p>I agree with Mudder about SPAC. And a day at the races at Saratoga is fun for all, whether you bet a race or not. Great for people-watching. Museum of Dance, beautiful architecture, healing waters, art at Skidmore. </p>
<p>Saratoga is the August place to be !!</p>
<p>Also, check out Shakespeare and Co. in Lenox MA.</p>