The first stop on our EV Road Trip this spring was Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. I am not sure what prompted my husband to decide that we should stop here but I think he really wanted to go see a Major League Baseball game and Pittsburgh was along the way to Hilton Head. Or at least in the right direction. We had one day in Pittsburgh to see what there was to see.
One Day in Pittsburgh
We arrived in Pittsburgh early afternoon, so really we had closer to a day and a half. But that first day we were really just checking in and figuring everything out for a touristy day. We checked into our hotel using the Bonvoy app which allowed us to alert the hotel we would be earlier than the standard check in time. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott Downtown which was in the Cultural District of downtown Pittsburgh.
Once we dropped our bags and oriented ourselves we decided to go for a walk. We wanted to pre buy our tickets to the baseball game so that we could just walk in the next day. The yellow bridges provide a crossing to the North Shore which is where you find PNC park. The Rachel Carson Bridge is only a few blocks from our hotel.
In our wanderings we found some interesting areas that we didn’t get the scoop on until the next day on our hop on hop off bus tour (like Market Square and PPG Place). There is quite a lot of history for a smaller city. The City of Pittsburgh proper only has a population just over $300 thousand, but the Greater Metropolitan area is just over 2 million. To put things into perspective I live in a city with a larger population but our Greater Metropolitan area is farm land so yea not really the same. What I am trying to get at is that Pittsburgh feels like a bigger city even though it doesn’t have a huge population in the downtown area.
We had dinner the first night across the street from our hotel. Sienna Mercato has three levels and the first floor is a meatball place. It was good. The pasta was very tasty, but I couldn’t get over how dense the meat balls were. They were definitely not homemade as you would have had to use some sort of press to get the meatballs THAT dense.
That night the street noise was pretty loud. Our room looked out right onto Penn Avenue and I don’t think the activity died down until after 11 pm. That said everyone but me had no problems falling asleep so it may just be an issue for those of us who are very light sleepers.
The next morning we went out for a greasy spoon type breakfast and then met up with the hop on hop off bus tour. There is only one option when touring Pittsburgh and that is with the Pittsburg Tour Company. We actually rode the tour almost two full rotations. Once through to hear the whole tour and then we got off at the Carnegie Natural History Museum before catching the tour bus again to get back to our stop near the hotel.
I would definitely recommend the hop on hop off bus tour. They always get flack for being super touristy but here’s the thing, we are tourists! I find them the best way to get the lay of the land before spending more time in one area. I thought they did a good job of highlighting the sights and some history of the area.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History was good although not very big. If you or your kids like dinosaurs it is a must. Compared to the ROM I think the Royal Ontario Museum is better and the tour made me think maybe we should have gone to the Senator John Heinz History Museum instead but the kids liked this option.
The one thing I wish we had of taken the time to do was to go up the Duquesne Incline. I think it would have been fun to see the city from a different perspective.
After the hop on hop off bus tour we went back to the hotel to get ready for the baseball game. We made our way across the bridge to the North Shore and went to Burgatory for dinner before the game. One thing I will say is to go early for dinner as all the restaurants near PNC park filled up very early. We were one of the last groups seated before there were long waits for tables. I had the What the Fried Chicken, it was very good.
After dinner we headed over to PNC Park for the Pittsburgh Pirates game. My husband and son were in their element. It was a very nice field. I think I have only every been to Blue Jays games so it was neat to be at a different MLB field.
We didn’t stay until the end of the game but we did feel very safe walking back to the hotel after 9 pm. Then it was into bed to get up bright and early for another leg of our EV Road Trip to Hilton Head Island.
Have you been to Pittsburgh before?