Several years ago, we flew into Philadelphia in February to see the annual flower show in the convention center. It extended over three blocks with 2nd story crossovers of the streets. It is the nation's largest and longest-running horticultural event. In 2021 it was moved outdoors in June, and it is again scheduled to be outdoors this year because of the continuing pandemic. We were greeted with a flurry of snow, but the weather cleared the next day.

We had toured Independence Hall and some of the historical sites on previous tours so on this trip we limited ourselves to three art museums and some of the downtown buildings. Not that many of the 18th Century buildings remain in the Central City from the period in which Philadelphia was the largest city in the Colonies.

We toured the Barnes Collection in its original location in the suburbs before it moved downtown. He was an eccentric collector who insisted in his will that the collection had to be maintained in his home in the exact locations he had placed the art and that the docents had to follow the script he had written. The collection is primarily of Impressionist artists. The neighbors complained about the traffic in the residential neighborhood, so the museum broke the will and moved the collection.

We next toured the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Much of their permanent collection is now accessible for free online from their website. The main building contains 200 galleries of world class art so you can spend a lot of time here. philamuseum.org/visit

The Rodin Collection contains one of the largest exhibits of sculpture of the 19th Century Parisian Sculptor Paul Rodin. The North Carolina Art Museum also has a large collection. We also visited the Rodin Museum when we were in Paris, so we've seen a variety of castings from a wide range of periods.

Some of the most interesting buildings downtown include the Macy's Department Store, which is in the building of the old Wannamaker's store. As far as I know, it is the only one to contain a pipe organ.

The Masonic Temple welcomes visitors to its series of grand halls in a variety of architectural styles.

The City Hall sits right in the center of town, and its tower still is not eclipsed by the surrounding office towers even though they are much taller now.

The nearby fountain has come to be the symbol of the city of Brotherly Love.

In the evenings we attended performances of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Philadelphia Ballet at the Kimmel Cultural Campus that includes five theaters and concert halls. The ultra-modern Verizon Hall is home to the orchestra, and the historic Academy of Music is home to the opera and ballet. These organizations are ranked in the top tier in the country. We found the Verizon a bit intimidating.

We stayed a week in a residential hotel, but of course, we only were able to scratch the surface of what is available in this large city with more than 6 million people in the surrounding area.

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