by Olha Romaniuk

Created on: June 18, 2008   Last Updated: December 05, 2008

Each Philadelphia neighborhood brings its unique flavor to the colorful blend that makes the city so unforgettable. Most visitors will surely be implored by the tour guides to visit all the usual landmarks, the Liberty Bell, Second Bank, Penn's Landing and the Ben Franklin Parkway with the Philadelphia Museum of Art prominently displayed at the end of the long, ceremonial approach. Culture lovers will be lured to the Avenue of the Arts, to visit the Kimmel Center prominently situated on Broad Street. Food connoisseurs will, inadvertently, gravitate to Le Bec Fin for the finest French cuisine in the city or Capital Grille, where they can not only enjoy exquisite food but also rub shoulders with the movers and shakers of the city, who frequent that place during lunch and dinner hours. Those seeking a more casual dining atmosphere will explore the historical Old City that offers a variety of food options, from Cuba Libre, with its exotic interior decor and weekly salsa lessons to Red Sky that offers weekly wine specials.

But the real richness of the city can be truly experienced when a visitor dares to diverge off the typical tourist route and venture into the heart and soul of the Philadelphia neighborhoods. A truly rewarding experience is stepping into one of the tiny, barely noticeable off a street, South Philadelphia Italian restaurants and being greeted with a hot, fresh out of the oven, roll of bread and a hearty stick of butter. An unforgettable moment can be found in discovering a one-of-a-kind article of clothing at one of the hundreds of shops right around South Street. And to top it all off, a tourist can almost start feeling like a true Philadelphian when ordering a cheesesteak, not from Gino's or Pat's - the usual suspects, but from a mom-and-pop pizza shop in Northeast or West Philadelphia.

Philadelphia's true experience lies not so much within its notable buildings, it lies within the people who built them and who inhabit them, the unique variety of individuals who comprise the city. An unforgettable stay in Philadelphia is not the one that can be conducted with a pen and a check list of things to do at hand, it lies in walking about, exploring and experiencing the everyday ordinary. That is the essence of the city.

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