Fun in Philly

Philadelphia fun this weekend has included a trip to the Museum of Art and a surprise. It has also included more heat and humidity than I’m happy to cope with in April, and the disappointment of not seeing the Cézanne exhibition to which I was so looking forward. We were at the museum in the morning, and the next entry time for which there were tickets available was 4pm.

But enter and enjoy the museum we did anyway. We went, not only to the main museum, but also to the Perelman Building. Some of the gallery space there is currently devoted to an exhibition of Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera. The painting is by Dufy, and shows the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, along which I promenaded many times when I lived near there.

In the afternoon, we were fortunate enough to stumble across Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, a much-mosaic’d house and courtyard. You can see my ***** review at Yelp.

Sun Day in Philly

PhilbertThis is Philbert, mascot of Reading Terminal Market. I think that it compares very favorably with Boston’s Quincy Market, in that it’s more of a market than a mall. There’s a short video of the market at the end of this post.

I am impressed with the Philadelphia Museum of Art (and will leave comparisons with Boston’s MFA until I’ve had a good chance to check out the expanded MFA). We were lucky to catch, on the penultimate day, the excellent Nandalal Bose exhibition (here’s a review in the NYT).

I’ll just mention the hotter-than-the-August-weather Szechuan lunch we had in Philly’s Chinatown, and my regret and surprise that the name of the restaurant isn’t seared into my mind. I also regret that I didn’t take a picture of the poster offering an “infamous Vietnamese hoagie” or something like that. If you want to linger in Philly, here’s that video of Reading Terminal Market: