Philadelphia: Independence Mall

On Thursday morning, we headed for Philadelphia just 30 minutes from Valley Forge. We spent the morning seeing the free sights in the Independence Mall area. When I was in junior high, my family visited Philadelphia. At that time, the Liberty Bell was outside under a pavilion. Now a building has been built around it.

I love this verse from Leviticus which is inscribed on the bell.

Here it is! The Liberty Bell was made for the Pennsylvania State House long before the Declaration of Independence was signed.  The old State House bell was first called the "Liberty Bell" by a group trying to outlaw slavery.

 

It was extremely difficult to get a picture of the kids with the bell.  There was a large group of Chinese-speaking people there at the same time, and they were very organized at pushing their way to the front and taking pictures of one another.  This is as good as I was able to do!

We also toured Independence Hall and Congress Hall.  Everything else in this area cost money to see, and we didn't want to spend the money here.  

This is the outside of Independence Hall (the old Pennsylvania State House) where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed.

 

This is the room where the signing took place.  The chair with the rising sun is almost the only original thing in the room.

 

This is Congress Hall where Congress met prior to the capital being moved to Washington, D.C.

We walked six blocks to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch.  That sounded like a much shorter walk than it was.  This was a really neat place to eat.  It was like a warehouse of food stands.  Fun!  

After lunch, we drove over to the Eastern State Penitentiary.  More on that in the next post!