Category: TRAVEL
My Philadelphia Trip
My Philadelphia trip was one and a half day (two nights) but it was still worth it. When I travel, I do extensive searches and planning beforehand, especially, if it is going to be only for a few-day trip. First, I search for the places I would like to see or worth to see. I google ‘Things to do’ and ‘Things to see’ and decide which ones I would like to do. I look at TripAdvisor, that city’s official website and personal blogs. TripAdvisor usually helps me with walking tour ideas and places to see. Then I google ‘where to eat’, ‘GF cafe or restaurants’, ‘coffee houses/cafe’, ‘Whole Foods’, ‘organic food’ and ‘European bakeries’ . Everything that I am interested in or need. Then, I save the ones that I like on the Google Map, as you will see below.. I prepare a route for me for things to do and places to eat. Lastly, I find a place to stay which is convenient, and as much central as it can be based on my other searches.
I did all these above mentioned searches and planning. So far I am very happy with all the choices. Well, most important thing is the hotel. If that is good, the rest like GF bakeries, cafe or restaurants etc are new experiences and it is ok if we do not like them. That is why I always have Whole Foods as a back up plan. If the restaurants are really expensive or if we can not find a place we’d like to eat, Whole Foods is life saver.
The highlight for me of this visit was the City Hall. I could not get enough of its architecture. I have taken its photos from different angles, streets and all the details were amazing. My pictures will surely do no justice. I am not sure why this building mesmerized me during day or night time, but it was great!
First night, we walked around the City Hall. There were great light shows (see picture below), music, ice skating ring, food & drink places. As you can see on the map, it was only 5-10 minute walk from our hotel, Roost Midtown. On the map, the hearts are where we had chance to go, flags are where I wanted to go but did not have time to do so.
We had breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien, one of my favorite places. I’ve been to the ones in Istanbul, New York & Washington. All three except New York experiences were great. The one in New York had small tables, and bad service.
I wanted to try P.S.& Co. which was an organic, plant-based, gluten free and vegan cafe. We bought 2 desserts and coffees. They were really close to cakes that were made with real dairy and regular flour. The tables inside were not in use, so we sat outside. The weather was nice, lucky us, so it was refreshing.
All day was museums & a Basilica day. It was a great day to walk. Whole Foods’ location was great for convenience too. We saw Christmas Village. We could not finish Museum of Arts, so on next morning, we went again (and still could not finish). We saw Rocky’s steps and statue, of course, a classic trip moment. :)
Before we leave Philadelphia, we stopped by the La Colombe Coffee Roasters. Oh my God, their coffee, well cappuccino, was soo delicious, creamy, just the way I like it. We also got an almond croissant to share (with my hubby) and again it was soo delicious, I got the second one. It had a really smooth, tasty but not overwhelming almond paste kind of thing in it. It was nothing like marzipan. I do not like marzipan.
Few days before our Philadelphia trip, I totally forgot about it and I did my weekly grocery shopping. So I decided to cook them and bring my food to this trip. That is why, I looked for a hotel that has a full kitchen. But I also wanted it to be in the center of our walking/sightseeing route for convenience, because parking is always a problem in big cities.
Considering all the factors, I decided (after my hubby’s ok) on the ROOST MIDTOWN hotel and we loved it because of the high ceilings, new, clean, full kitchen, Washer & Dryer, stylish, offers complimentary filtered water and sparkling water (station on R5 floor), lending book library and great location. You can get a little more information from this link that I found. When I read this article, I was even more impressed. It tells about the cofounder/CEO Randall Cook, the designer and the furniture/interiors of the 2 locations but actually there are 3 locations : Roost Midtown, Rittenhouse and East Market. According to their website there will be other Roosts in Detroit, Cleveland and Tampa.
ohh, by the way, I also loved the Coffee Bundle kit in the kitchen. And guess what, the coffee beans they provided in the kit was from La Colombe. So I got to enjoy the creamy, tasty coffee at home for a few more days. ( I did not take the jar, just the beans with me, by the way. )
Now, I was going to share all the wonderful pictures that I have taken in Philadelphia but guess what? My storage card gave an error (God knows why and how)and I lost all the pictures 😢. We could not retrieve them. I found 2 pictures from my husbands phone. Well, now I have a reason to go back there again, I guess, right? 😊
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Streets Of Denver
Denver , Colorado is six hours from where I live. I have been there for 3 nights and days. First night (Friday), my husband and I went to 16th street Mall right after checking in our hotel. It was beautiful with all the lights, stores on each side, the free Mall bus and the horse drown carriages.
16th street mall is a long street with cafes, restaurants and shopping places. If you like you can walk all the way up and down the street or if you are tired you can take free bus on this street. If you feel like a romantic ride, you can get on the beautifully decorated, colored horse drown carriages. Unfortunately, I could not take their picture since I did not have my camera with me.
Next day (Saturday), after having my brunch at Mercury Cafe, I started wondering around the streets of Denver. I have taken hundreds of pictures. At the end of the day, feeling tired because of walking 5-6 hours, I took a bus till Broadway street and a free mall bus from there to California Street where my hotel is.
Beside the fact that my feet were hurting, I was really happy because I had taken about 500 pictures, found quite unique places in the streets of Denver. I had few places that I wanted to visit but couldn’t such as:
I did go (walk) to these cafes but they (first two) were closed by the time I was there and the third one, I did not have time. :( I wanted to see these because they were locally sourced/organic cafes.
Same Cafe is a unique place where you can eat but pay as a donation or volunteer work. While I was passing by this cafe, I was trying to look through the window, since it was closed, I heard a voice over my shoulder saying ‘This is a great place, you eat really good food and you only put money in donation box. I ate good pizza for only $2 ‘. It was a man on the street going the same way with me. This place was only using locally grown/organic ingredients and everybody could eat there, whether they have money or not. I was impressed.
Cafe Sanora is an Italian cafe, foods made with locally sourced produce and meat whenever possible. Of course coffee is Rainforest Alliance Certified and organic coffee.
The French Press I wanted to go here because I heard they have European style pastries. I love those creamy and/or flaky desserts.
On Sunday I could not get out of the hotel because of the snow. Yes, on Saturday it was beautiful and warm, but all of a sudden, on Sunday snow decided to come to Denver for 3 days (as news channels said). It was OK though, because I was really tired and hanged out in the concierge room categorizing my pictures and publishing Mercury Cafe while I was enjoying breakfast, hors d’oeuvre , dessert and drinks all day :) .
I believe, sometimes instead of words, seeing (pictures) are more descriptive, they speak for their selves. So please enjoy my pictures from my Facebook page.
My picture gallery for Denver:
Capitol Hill Books, bookstore
Common Grounds, cafe
Coors Field, stadium
Osteria Marco, Italian restaurant
Pandora, gift shop
The Desk, cafe & workplace
The Market, market
…………………, Italian restaurant
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Mercury Cafe, Denver (CO)
I tagged along to my husband when he came to Denver for business. I am glad that I did. I found a place where I can eat clean & delicious food, listen to poetry and watch people swing (unfortunately i can’t but enjoyed the music though). MERCURY CAFE . I am impressed by the community youth who read their own poems with such passion I even felt them (considering i do not have any talent/education on it).
I loved the colors and the paintings (everywhere) done by the employees in the dining, poetry (Jungle Room) and dance (Dance Hall) salons. They have different events everyday Mercury Cafe Events.
We had brunch and light dinner there.
For Brunch: I had two eggs (organic), green chile, grilled potatoes and house made spelt bread. My husband had the vegetarian omelet. I ate every bit of it as my husband did his too. Our brunch plates came with piece of fruit, bread, butter and house made pear preserve (I guess, may be I should say sweetened, softened pear slices).
For dinner: I had small salad with green chile soup (as you can tell I love spicy, hot food) and my husband had Quesadilla (blue corn ) with trout. My bowl of soup was kind of too hot (spicy) and I wanted to mix it with milk so that I can have creamy and little bit less spicy. My server was so kind, she even warmed it up for me and guess what, she said milk was organic, if i am not mistaken, the milk was the kind that I use at home, non-homogenized, good quality of milk that comes in glass.
For me; milk, chicken and eggs are really important. They HAVE TO be ORGANIC. They were organic here, PLUS bread was house made, this means no additives & no unnecessary, hard-to-pronounce ingredients.
They had different varieties of desserts including vegan and Gluten free. After 10 pm, it was half off :)
Well, I will leave the rest to the pictures … By the way, you will see our brunch server’s picture. Her name is Aimee.
Thank you Aimee and Cafe Mercury for the wonderful time and food that you provided us.
P.s: You can’t use credit/debit card there, so have some cash with you.
i am my doctor 