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United Airlines Flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Philadelphia (PHL)
Orbitz is pleased to offer airline tickets on United Airlines, which operates 3 regularly scheduled daily non-stop flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Philadelphia (PHL), departing between 1:20pm and 10:40pm, and 2 additional non-stop flights, departing between 9:11am and 10:00pm on select days of the week. The average travel time from San Francisco, CA to Philadelphia, PA is 5 hours and 20 minutes.*
* Some flights must connect with additional service on any airline.
During your Philadelphia vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Even on a hazy day you can see America's third-largest art museum from City Hall -- a resplendent, huge, beautifully proportioned Greco-Roman temple on a hill. Because the museum, established in the 1870s, has relied on donors of great wealth and idiosyncratic taste, the collection does not aim to present a comprehensive picture of Western or Eastern art. But its strengths are dazzling: It houses undoubtedly one of the finest groupings of art objects in America, and no visit to Philadelphia would be complete without at least a walk-through; allow 2 hours minimum. Late hours on Friday have become a city favorite, and there is a new bar open in summer in the elegant front courtyard overlooking the city skyline.The museum is designed simply, with L-shaped wings off the central court on two stories. A major rearrangement of the collections was recently completed, and paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts are grouped within set periods. The front entrance (facing City Hall) admits you to the first floor. Special exhibition galleries and American art are to the left; the collection emphasizes that Americans came from diverse cultures, which combined to create a new, distinctly national aesthetic. French- and English-inspired domestic objects, such as silver, predominate in the Colonial and Federal galleries, but don't neglect the fine rooms of Amish and sturdy Shaker crafts. The 19th-century gallery has many works by Philadelphia's Thomas Eakins, which evoke the spirit of the city in watercolors and oils.Originally controversial 19th- and 20th-century European and contemporary art galleries highlight Cézanne's monumental Bathers and Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, which doesn't seem nearly as revolutionary as it did in 1913. The recent gift of the McIlhenny $300-million collection of paintings is one of the great donations of this type and adds strength in the French Impressionist area.Upstairs, spread over 83 galleries, is a chronological sweep of European arts from medieval times through about 1850. The John G. Johnson Collection, a Renaissance treasure trove, has been added to the museum's holdings. Roger van der Weyden's diptych Virgin and Saint John and Christ on the Cross, one of the Johnson Collection, is renowned for its exquisite sorrow and beauty. Another, Van Eyck's Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, is unbelievably precise (borrow the guard's magnifying glass). Other masterpieces include Poussin's frothy Birth of Venus (the USSR sold this and numerous other canvases in the early 1930s, and many were snapped up by American collectors) and Rubens's sprawling Prometheus Bound. The remainder of the floor takes you far away -- to medieval Europe, 17th-century battlefields, Enlightenment salons, and Eastern temples.The museum has excellent dining facilities. A cafe, open Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 4:30pm, dispenses simple and reasonable lunches and salads. The museum restaurant down the hall is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30am to 2:30pm, Sunday from 11am to 3:30pm. All main courses are under $20. There's also a lovely little Balcony Café just up the stairs as you enter the museum, for espresso, soups, sandwiches, and pastries.The PMA has brought millions into the economy over the past decade with blockbuster exhibits of works by Picasso, Cézanne, van Gogh, and Degas, plus mounted wonderful fashion exhibits of Schiaparelli. The Museum recently acquired a massive Art Deco former insurance headquarters a block away, though they are not sure what they will feature here.
The Liberty Bell
You can't leave Philadelphia without seeing the Liberty Bell. The Bell is housed in a new 13,000-square-foot, $12.4 million glass pavilion, 235 feet long and 50 feet wide, angled so you can see it against the backdrop of Independence Hall, but avoiding the brutal modern Penn Mutual skyscraper flanking the Hall.The Liberty Bell, America's symbol of freedom and independence, was commissioned in 1751 for the Pennsylvania State House to mark the 50th anniversary of a notable event: William Penn, who governed Pennsylvania alone under Crown charter terms, decided that free colonists had a right to govern themselves, so he established the Philadelphia Assembly under a new Charter of Privileges. The 2,000-pound bell, cast in England, cracked while it was being tested, and the Philadelphia firm of Pass and Stow recast it by 1753. It hung in Independence Hall to "proclaim liberty throughout the land" as the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to the citizens. In 1777, it survived a trip to an Allentown church so the British wouldn't melt it down for ammunition. The last time it tolled was to celebrate Washington's birthday in 1846. The term Liberty Bell was coined by the abolitionist movement, which recognized the relevance of its inscription, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," in the fight against slavery.The new building offers excellent information and interactive exhibits, including an X-ray of the bell's crack and a film produced by the History Channel about how the bell became an international icon of freedom. Language options for the narrative videos range from Russian to Chinese to German.
Betsy Ross House
One Colonial home everybody knows about is this one near Christ Church, restored in 1937, and distinguished by the Stars and Stripes outside. Elizabeth (Betsy) Ross was a Quaker needlewoman who, newly widowed in 1776, worked as a seamstress and upholsterer out of her home on Arch Street. Nobody is quite sure if no. 239 was hers, though. And nobody knows for sure if she did the original American flag of 13 stars set in a field of 13 red-and-white stripes, but she was commissioned to sew ships' flags for the American fleet to replace the earlier Continental banners.The tiny house takes only a minute or two to walk through. The house is set back from the street, and the city maintains the Atwater Kent Park in front, where Ross and her last husband are buried. The upholstery shop (now a gift shop renovated in 1998) opens into the period parlor. Other rooms include the cellar kitchen (standard placement for this room), tiny bedrooms, and model working areas for upholstering, making musket balls, and the like. Note such little touches as reusable note tablets made of ivory; pine cones used to help start hearth fires; and the prominent kitchen hourglass. Flag Day celebrations are held here on June 14.
Make your reservations for discount hotel rooms in the
Philadelphia area, including:
Philadelphia Airport Hilton
The Philadelphia Airport Hilton is out of the way of flight patterns and features a just-renovated lobby and cocktail lounge built around a lushly planted indoor pool. Like all airport hotels, business travelers predominate during the week, and reservations are recommended. The guest rooms, with whirlpool-equipped bathrooms redone in 2000, are classically American -- spacious and comfortable -- and will all be renovated by 2005.
Chamounix Hostel Mansion
The oldest building offering accommodations in town, this renovated 1802 Quaker farmhouse is also the cheapest. Chamounix Mansion is a Federal-style edifice constructed as a country retreat at what is now the upper end of Fairmount Park. It has six air-conditioned dormitory rooms for 44 people, with limited family arrangements, and another 37 spots in a fully renovated adjoining carriage house. Guests have use of the renovated self-serve kitchen, the TV/VCR lounge, free videos, and bicycles. Write or call ahead for reservations, since the hostel is often 90% booked in summer by groups of boat crews or foreign students. You can check in daily from between 4:30pm and midnight (which is the hostel's curfew) and show an American Youth Hostel card or IYHF card for member rates. Checkout is from 8 to 11am. Call AYH directly at tel. 215/925-6004 for information on hostel trips in the area.
Sheraton Rittenhouse Square
This attractive, renovated 1930s apartment building is spare and sleek, and one of the best values in its neighborhood, with its location right on urbane Rittenhouse Square. The hotel is marketed as the first "environmentally smart" hotel in the continental United States, with fresh filtered air, organic cotton bedding, bamboo plants and recycled granite in the lobby, energy efficient lighting, and no smoking anywhere. (You agree to pay $50 as a sanitizing fee if you smoke in the rooms.) Rooms are modern and very comfortable, with pretty striped wallpaper and deep chairs; a spacious 400 square feet on average, with 9 1/2-foot ceilings and state-of-the-art technology. The same standards of care and cleanliness apply to the large, marbled bathrooms. Many have separate sitting areas and balconies, and kitchenettes are available. I'd avoid the interior rooms, facing all-night airshaft lighting instead of Rittenhouse Square.Bleu is the hotel's low-key bistro and cafe with outdoor seating, while Potcheen Restaurant, facing Locust Street, is very casual, with American fare.
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