A Half-Day in Pittsburgh
Almost a year has flown by since Jessica and I last visited Miami on the trip where we selected it as the destination for our wedding. We were advised by our planner to come down four months prior to the wedding, so it was now that time to head back down in order to finalize details with our florist, officiant, stylist, as well as taste the meals and cake that would be served the day of.
Rather than fly down again, we decided that we wanted to do another road trip through the States. This would be our longest yet with approximately 27 hours of driving ahead of us since we decided to hit up a few large cities along the way. The original plan was to rent a car in Buffalo and drop it off at the Miami airport with one-way tickets back to Pearson airport in Toronto. We booked our one-way flights months ahead with the full intention of committing to the plan but just one week prior to the trip, my parents decided that they wanted to tag along and instead drive my car down to Florida. Once we reached Miami we would then split and they’d drive back up to Hamilton on their own time. This sounded great, so on August 23rd, 2017 we set off on a 5-day road trip from Hamilton, Ontario to Miami, Florida with stops planned in Pittsburgh, Washington, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine.
Reaching Pittsburgh took under five hours from where we live, which left us with the afternoon and evening to explore the city. The first stop we made was Pittsburgh’s highest rated attraction — Phipps Conservatory.
The Conservatory is a botanical garden and glasshouse with several themed sections including a desert room, Japanese garden, tropical forest and orchid room.
I tested some of my macro lenses on a variety of flowers with impressive results.
Behind a chain curtain was a butterfly room where I continued testing my extreme close-ups.
Phipps was a very peaceful way to spend an afternoon. From here we drove to Pittsburgh's downtown and explored the city core. I certainly wasn’t expecting Pittsburgh to be as tall as it was, and while the contours of the land do exaggerate the height of some buildings, a whopping 16 of those downtown towers are over 30 floors tall!
We made our way to the Market Square; the hub of local shops and downtown activity. It felt like a little community here as there was an outdoor yoga class in action and free life-size chess, checkers, and four-in-a-row to pass the time. Later in the evening there was a live music performance in the square. Most of the structures in the square are from the mid-1800s and thus are only two or three stories tall. This creates a very cozy, tightly-knit collection of old-fashioned businesses that brings out a lot of character, despite being surrounded by large modern towers just outside the market.
Point State Park is only a hop, skip and a jump away from the Market Square so we went there next. The park lays on the tip of the peninsula where the city’s three rivers connect. It’s also the site of a former 1754 French fort, marked only by a granite outline in the grass.
From the park, we took a walkway up the northern side of the peninsula along the Allegheny River that really put in perspective why they call Pittsburgh “The City of Bridges”. With 446 bridges, Pittsburgh has even more bridges than Venice! It’s a result of having three major rivers (the Ohio River, Monongahela River and Allegheny River) converge in this location. Of course this was done strategically in the early beginnings of the city as it was an ideal trading route and perfect for shipping manufactured goods, which is why Pittsburgh is so well known for their steel industry — much like my own hometown in Hamilton.
Along this river, we came across the homes of Pittsburgh’s largest sports franchises. Namely, Heinz Field for the Steelers’ football team…
…and PNC Park for the Pirates’ baseball team!
As it was getting late into the evening and we had a lot of driving ahead of us, we decided to make a final stop at the famous Mount Washington which looks over the entire city from a tall peak (yet another similarity to Hamilton). With a long camera exposure and a still railing to perch my DSLR upon, I managed to grab a great final shot to remember Pittsburgh by.
And that was it for my half-day stay in this city! Tomorrow would be Washington, D.C.!
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This blog entry is part of the publication Robert Cekan Travels
Robert Cekan is a young entrepreneur and proud Hamiltonian. He is the founder of the Hamilton discovery website True Resident, as well as Cekan Group, a property management group. He is also a Hamilton REALTOR® with Ambitious Realty Advisors Inc., Brokerage and an active blogger.
For all of Robert’s projects, please visit robertcekan.com
