Pittsburgh, USA

 

Pittsburgh is a wonderfully walkable city with quirky museums, friendly locals, a buzzing bar scene and delicious old-school American cuisine.

 

Pittsburgh, Brook Ward

 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA next door to New York, has come along way in 100 years. It was once a manufacturing city that emitted so much pollution from its steel mills that it became known as “hell with the lid off”.

Nowadays, this progressive, sprawling city with a population of over two million, is rather picturesque where people are often seen kayaking along its three rivers – the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers.

 

It’s still a steel city and even has an American football team, “The Steelers”, named after this long standing manufacturing heritage. However it has been dubbed “The City of Bridges” thanks to a whopping 466 bridges that connect the region’s valleys, hillsides, river plains, and, what would otherwise be isolated communities.

 

 

If you’re staying in Downtown Pittsburgh, you’re well placed to visit many of the city’s most famous museums. Start with the Heinz History Center, an excellent museum that documents 250 years of Pittsburgh’s history. There are seven floors so we recommend picking one or two to explore if you’re only there for a few days.

Our favourite was the Heinz room, which celebrates the joys of Heinz tomato ketchup and baked beans with great aplomb. You can watch some very amusing historic ketchup adverts on era-accurate television sets.

 

 

Heinz Room at the Heinz HIstory Centre (c) Andrew Moss

For art lovers, the Andy Warhol Museum is an absolute must-see. The king of pop art was born in Pittsburgh and many of his most famous pieces are housed in the museum, which also includes loads of interesting details about his life and legacy. There’s also an excellent contemporary art museum nearby, The Mattress Factory, which has nothing to do with beds but everything to do with art from the daring to the downright barmy.

If you’re interested in local history, take an Uber to the Frick Art & Historical Center in the city’s Point Breeze neighbourhood where you can visit several museums, a cafe, lovely gardens and the home – “Clayton” – of 19^th century industrialist and art collector Henry Frick. Frick was spectacularly wealthy and it’s worth taking a tour of Clayton just to see the sheer opulence of the decor.