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peek into this week's episode. I'm Scott.
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And I'm Alyssa.
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And we are the Sunshine Travelers. Our passion is travel and sharing our experiences with those who enjoyed as much as we do, or those who want to learn more about travel, or even those that just want to live vicariously through our travel stories. No matter where you fall along that journey, get ready to hear about our first-hand experiences as we visit some of the most interesting and amazing places on earth. In this episode, I'm already missing college football and dreaming of baseball season. Today, we're going to jump on a short flight up the East Coast and visit the city of bridges, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Once one of the largest producers of steel in the world, they definitely put a lot of it to use in making bridges. 446 of them to be exact. Once known as hell with the lit off because of the smoke, smog, and fire that were prevalent during the steel making days, that is no longer true about Pittsburgh. Journey along with us and we'll talk about what we did for a weekend trip. Where to stay, what to do, and what to eat. So pack an overnighter and join us as we travel to Pittsburgh.
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Sunshine Travelers, so we took the sun with us. While it may have been a little cool, we had some beautiful weather and we were able to enjoy a lot of walking around the city and visiting some of its treasured sites. I mentioned that I am dreaming of baseball because that is on my list to go catch a Braves-Pirates game at PNC Park, right on the edge of the water
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funny about this trip is that besides the reason that we were going, which was going to a concert with some friends of ours, is that we had absolutely nothing planned before we got there. And other than going to the concert and meeting them for dinner, we had an afternoon, another whole day, and then part of a third day to explore. And so a lot of times when we visit a city, we like to ask people what we should do. But in this case, we really just got a little help from the Google machine, right? And looked on TripAdvisor and like, what are the top things that come up around us as we walk to lunch and went inside, had lunch and said, okay, what else do we want to do?
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Yeah. And that's the way it works sometimes. This wasn't travel in terms of creating some type of content or anything like that. It was really the purpose was to go up there, visit our friends,
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First on our list, though, and I did know that this was there. But like I said, we didn't like say, we OK, want to go do this and this and this. But then as we sat down at lunch that day and look to see kind of all the things, then we said these would be some nice things to do. So, of course, number one on the list, I think, is that you want to visit the Andy Warhol Museum. So after we had lunch right there by the stadium, that is what we did. And I had seen a lot of famous Andy Warhol art at various museums and exhibits. I think I had been to a special one when we were in New York one time. But this one is really different. I mean, yes, it has some of the iconic Andy Warhol pieces, probably not the most famous ones. But what it really is, it's a comprehensive and chronological collection of his art and film. I didn't even know that he did film before we went. And then other interesting projects as well. So it's definitely in a collection and then a perspective that you won't see anywhere else. And it's several floors. So you need at least a couple of hours to take it all in.
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The only thing I knew about Andy Warhol before going there, our daughter had a, like a print from Andy Warhol over her bed one time as a teenager, and it was a Marilyn Monroe. And I remember that picture. And then I'd seen the Campbell Soup paintings or whatever before. But really, that was kind of the extent of Andy Warhol that I was familiar with.
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So she actually had the Jackie one, although there is one of Marilyn, the same style, which is the very famous one. What's interesting that I learned, the museum, I just thought he did those of famous people, but people could actually pay him and have those commissioned as well. And so that was something that I had no idea that during that time would be how he would like earn a living. Right.
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Yeah. And so this is right in downtown Pittsburgh. We were staying just a couple of blocks away from there. And, you know, we had asked our friends where to stay and, you know, they'd given us a general area. So it was a short walk to the Warhol Museum. We spent a couple of hours there. And then I think it was later that evening that we left to go to the Warhol Museum. We spent a couple of hours there. And then I think it was later that evening that we left to go to the concert.
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So another thing in that area that we enjoyed, and if the weather was warm and nice, that would be good to do, would be to grab drinks at the Southern Tier Brewery. And so we did do that before we headed over to the concert. So it's the Southern Tier Brewery on the North Shore of Pittsburgh. So they also have appetizers and merch and stuff like that, but a brewery that you could visit and enjoy as well. So we went to the concert. That was our main reason. But another reason that people might come to this area would obviously be to catch a game by the river. And Scott, you mentioned there is both the PNC Stadium, which is the baseball. Right. Right. And then the, let's see if I can get this right. It would be the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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I don't know what
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know what the stadium is. Is
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Is that Heinz Field? Oh, no, no. I got to look this up.
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Yeah. I'm not sure. So it's so interesting though that they're right there and then also that you just have the river which really makes it unique and so we were we had said when we got there and kind of saw the layout how cool that would be to see you know catch a game there so what'd you find
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out i googledled it. And it is Heinz Stadium.
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Very good. Yeah.
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Or I actually, think it might have had a change name change. name, Once known as Heinz
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Yeah. So I think that's the thing these days. It's, you know, wait a year or two and you never know what the stadium is going to be called. But unfortunately, we were too early for baseball and we were too late for football. It would be nice to go see the Braves play there sometime. Do they play
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them? On my list? Yes. Yes, they play.
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Yes. Yes, they play. But and in that area also, I imagine it would be really cool when they have games, right? There's plenty of bars and restaurants and just kind of enjoying that, you know, that that scene on a game day.
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I think there was a hockey game that night, but we looked at tickets and they were just like crazy expensive.
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Yes, that's true. That would have been a lot of fun too. There
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There were like $300 a ticket or something like that.
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Yeah.
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And we don't know enough about hockey to pay $300 a ticket. Yeah,
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to make it worth it. So then on Saturday, we decided that we would pick out a couple of places to go and have brunch. And we always do that just so we have kind of an idea. And then we can head in the right direction and then just see, you know, are the waits long? Because, like we said, we hadn't planned ahead. We didn't make reservations anywhere. But you ended up finding this place that I really enjoyed. It was called the Speckled Egg. We thought we were going to have to wait a while, but it wasn't too bad. But it is inside the renovated Union Trust Building downtown. And just going in that in itself is something to see. Somebody has spent a lot of money, which is great, right? Preserving this, but it is very, very well done and something really to see. So it is just gorgeous. But the speckled egg is just a really cute eatery that has sandwiches and brunch, cocktails and coffees. Like I mentioned, if you, I would reserve a table in advance. If you really want to do that, we just had to wait. But you can get morning cocktails and coffee while you wait. But I really enjoyed being able to not only walk. So we basically walked from the hotel across one of the bridges that we'll talk about in a second. And then just kind of see a lot of the old architecture. And then just to be able to go inside this building. So I'm really glad that somebody has spent some money. Most of it's offices, it appeared. but then they have a couple of restaurants. There's a
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There's a lot of absolutely beautiful architecture in Pittsburgh. And so, you know, if you're walking around, make sure to take your camera because that architecture is gorgeous. And you're going to want to try to capture some of those some of those pictures. But, you know, especially inside this building that Melissa was talking about where they had done this renovation. And I think it had like the long chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. Just really big and majestic. And I don't know. I wouldn't call it art deco. And
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just the way that they had done the elevators and the tile work so it was just it was very beautiful and so i imagine that you probably could find a like a historical walking tour
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there is right okay so for somebody
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okay so for somebody so again if we had planned ahead but to really walk with somebody and learn about the history of the city.
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Yeah, I looked just a little while ago and there is a walking tour of Pittsburgh. And so, you know, we've said that we wouldn't mind going back to Pittsburgh, spend a little bit of time there. Like we said, we want to go catch a game. And while we're there, I think that's something that we should do is take that walking tour.
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Yeah, that would be great. And so, and like we mentioned, we have friends there too. So that's always a, you know, always a plus to get to visit friends as well. But one of the things you do want to do that we, that we did even without the walking tour is walk across one or more of the bridges and take pictures. So, and I looked, had looked this up as well, what it was called. So the, the color that they paint them because you would just say oh the bridges are yellow but they actually call it Aztec gold bridges and so it just makes a wonderful backdrop even if it's cloudy I mean obviously pictures are always so nice when it's you know the sky is blue but makes a great backdrop for a picture so we'd walk from our hotel to the downtown area to the Speckled Egg. And then on the way back, got some really good pictures and just enjoyed that. So on a nice day, that's a great way to spend some time. I don't
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you caught that, but I mentioned in the very beginning that Pittsburgh is known as the city of bridges and that there's 446 bridges in Pittsburgh. Oh, Like wow.
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and Well, I imagine there's like lots bridges in Pittsburgh. wow. Oh, Like total, total. Well, and I imagine there's like lots of train, like train bridges. So when
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you look down that river, you just, I mean, especially from up on the side of the mountain, you look down and it's bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge. Pretty interesting fact there. Yeah. And
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I always like cities that have a river too that go through them obviously historically that was very functional right the reason that cities were built on rivers and you see that a lot in europe and stuff like that but it just it makes for a neat landscape yeah
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how they got there still transported was by the
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So then we headed back over the river, as I mentioned, and we went to the National Aviary. So this was really an amazing aviary. I'm not I don't remember why. Do you remember why we picked it to why we said we would want to? I think
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we were just looking for I think in this case, we were looking for something that might be indoors because it had started raining a little bit.
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Yeah, that's true. Now, it did. Yeah. So we walked a good ways. But yes, now it came like a downpour right before we got there. So I guess we had looked at the weather to see that it probably was going to rain. But I think it was really just using, you know, the TripAdvisor and saying, OK, what are the top things to do? And that was one of the things that was recommended. So it's not huge, but like I don't know of many places that have an aviary, you know, like outside of a zoo, I guess I should say, but I don't know many places that have an aviary just freestanding like this. I mean, they had penguins, they had a whole room of tropical birds. They had eagles. I can't even remember everything they had. Flamingos. Yeah. Oh yes. They had the whole, like, So it was like separated into sections. You would find birds in the world, right? So tropical. And then like you mentioned, more like Caribbean. And then the penguins and just all kinds of different things. They had like lorikeets and stuff that you could also pay extra to feed. And so, yeah. So it was just enjoyable just seeing that and having an indoor activity it was actually pretty crowded
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they had. Flamingos. Yeah.
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there it was actually a lot of people there so i'd
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there it was
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probably about two hours and like i mentioned they do have some other experiences that can you could do but like kids would especially enjoy this as well and and again it was an easy walk from where we were on that North Shore part.
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So I talked a little bit a while ago about going up on the side of the mountain and having that view down into Pittsburgh. You there's know, an incline railway that will take you Is that up. called a funicular? Is that a funicular or is it
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So it is specifically called an incline. Duncaness, Duncaness incline. Duncaness? Duncaness incline? Am I saying that correctly?
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Duquesne.
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Oh, sorry. Really terrible. Duquesne. Okay. Incline. And we did not plan enough in advance what we were going to do for dinner in order to do this. So if you're going to go and eat, so the particular place we went is called Fish Grotto, which we highly recommend for the views because it sits up on that hill overlooking the whole city. And so it would be fun to get transportation or whatever to the bottom of that, ride that incline up, and then it's just like a short little distance over to the fish grotto. I would also recommend, again, this was last minute, I would also recommend getting reservations for this restaurant, and it is dressy. So we'll talk about in the packing to just kind of be prepared, not like super dressy, but just having something that is a little bit nicer for that. So thankfully, we were able to get a table, but if you really planned ahead, you could say, hey, can we reserve a table? Probably, you know, by the window or something like that if you had a special occasion. And so that would be really neat. And I would say, try to get there. Well, I guess depending on the time of the year, but you know, light, and then you could see it like as it changed over. So you could kind of get both of the viewpoints, but that would, that would be what I would recommend. Unfortunately, we missed the incline. So we'll definitely have to do that next time. So what's interesting though. So here I'm talking about, so it's called Monterey Bay fish grotto. And here we are from Florida. And we're
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I'm not a big fan of seafood and landlocked locations,
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but, but
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this was really good. You know, I must say, living here at the beach, we've become a little bit spoiled with getting fresh seafood and stuff like that. So anytime you go to a place like this, a little bit concerned about the quality of the seafood that you're going to get was really good and did not disappoint at all. The lobster bisque, I remember having the lobster bisque and it was just really good and did not disappoint at The all. lobster bisque, I remember having the lobster bisque and it was just really good. Yeah, it's one
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places that's been there for a long time. It's iconic. Our friends were like, oh, this is where we need to go. Like this is a special place. This would be neat to take you there. They also have very adventurous cocktails as well. That is something that they're also known for. So I would say definitely try to do that and get reservations for that as well. And so then we kind of rounded out the weekend. On Sunday, go into the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden. So I have visited my share of botanical gardens, including Kew Gardens outside of London, the New York Botanical Gardens, including Kew Gardens outside of the New York Botanical Gardens, London, of course, in Atlanta, the Botanical Gardens. We just love plants and flowers. But I was this, really impressed. It's not huge like Kew Gardens. It's kind of compact. But in terms of how much they have there, they have a lot. A lot of different conservatories. They were actually having the spring flower show.
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of fact, their conservatories reminded me a bit of Kew Gardens.
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Yes, they did. For sure. Yeah. The
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The old, you know. It just
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know. It just wasn't as spread out.
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spread out. Steel, you know, greenhouses. And it was really neat.
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Yeah, it was really neat. Yeah, it was very neat. And yeah, because then they even had just like a Japanese maple garden worked in, but they had quite a number of conservatories. And because they had that spring flower show, they had just lots of different special displays that were just really neat. So I highly recommend that. It's not within walking distance, I wouldn't say from that North Shore from downtown, but it was a quick, like an Uber ride or a quick drive. And I think that like in a park area. So I think that there was like parking near the college and stuff as well. Highly recommend that though. I was really, that was really an enjoyable experience for us. We probably spent three or four hours there, I would say, that morning. And definitely worth the trip. And then our last stop is that we did want to find somewhere different to eat since we had eaten kind of in that other area a little bit. And so we just, again, looked on some recommendations of what was close by and got good recommendations. So we ended up finding a place called the porch at Schindler or Schindler.
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I'm not sure which one. And so that
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walking distance distance. And we kind of just kind of strolled over there. There was a bridge that had the locks on it. I don't know if you remember that. And there was a wait and we you could join the wait list, but we didn't have a ton of time because we were actually going back to catch a flight. We were going the wait but we didn't have a ton list, of time because we were actually going back to catch a flight. But so we just actually sat at the bar and we actually so this was and they have got, some apparently Sunday, famous cinnamon rolls. We saw them in these little skillets and going out to some of the tables. And so we asked the girl about it.
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We actually got the very last one of the cinnamon rolls. So you get them till there. Someone beside us asked for one after they
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ours and they were denied. Yeah. So that was one of the things. They have pizza. And then, of course, they serve, you know, taps with local beers and stuff like that. The weather's nice. They did have outdoor tables. Again, we sat inside, but just a neat place, a neat place to go that we really enjoyed.
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I'm sure there's a lot of things that we missed. You know, by no means had we traveled to Pittsburgh with the intention of, you know, really digging deep into the city. And so, you know, we just said, we'll put this back on our list and this is somewhere that will come again. Looking forward to it.
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I mean, I would say for the amount of time we had and not have any plans that we did pretty well. And so, Scott, next time, I guess when we go, we'll have to check out Viator. We'll have to check out that walking tour for some other unique experiences in Pittsburgh. You
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our favorite way to book local experiences is through Viator. You can do more with Viator. On one site, you have over 300,000 travel experiences that you'll remember. We like using Viator because of the free cancellation policy. Sometimes plans change, so you can receive a full refund if you cancel at least 24 hours in advance of most experiences. So book your spot now and pay later with their reserve now pay later feature. And of course, before booking, we always read the trusted reviews. Viator has 4.3 stars from over 140,000 Trustpilot reviews. Go to sunshinetravelers.com slash Viator to explore and book your next local experience.
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Scott, speaking of other activities, we did use Uber a couple of times just to get back and forth. And it was funny because two times, two different drivers mentioned, did y'all go to the zoo? Which, you know, not having kids with you or anything like that, it was just like, no, we didn't go to the zoo. And I think it was a little bit further out. I don't remember, but I think it was a little bit further out. But they were like, oh, you've got to go to the zoo. So I think that we need to check out, check that out as well. So that will be on our list for next time. I definitely think that where you stay is important, depending on what you're going to do and what you need to be able to kind of walk to if you don't rent a car but of course renting the car would be hard if you were in the city because then you got to worry about trying to find a place to park and stuff like that so you just kind of have to weigh those things so our friends had recommended that we stay in the north shore area which is near those stadiums and is convenient to downtown near that southern tier brewery that i mentioned and so of course staying loyal to our Marriott brand, we stayed at the residence inn. We weren't looking anything, you know, crazy fancy and just kind of did the job of and also kind of not really know in that area, too, and not having been there before. So this would be a fantastic location for catching a game and not having to worry about parking. I imagine that that hotel and the ones right there near them are hard to get.
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Yeah.
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You have to plan far in advance on game days. So also there's the Spring Hill Suites right there. There's a Holiday Inn right there. I think for the view, though, I would book just across the river at the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel. We would have had, we were like a street away from the river view. So it just was nothing but like a city view. And it was fine. It just wasn't anything. So, but the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel is right there on the river. And so you could have a city view. So we also would be more likely to get room upgrades, but the residence and the Spring Hill Suites, they do include breakfast. So just depending on what you're looking for. And that's why I was just thinking, well, what did we eat before we went to the one day we did the brunch? I was like trying to think what we did before we went to the conservatory, but I guess we took advantage of that hotel breakfast.
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with any destination trip, we always ask Melissa, what should you pack for a weekend trip to Pittsburgh? And this is going to be dependent upon the season and weather, but I think much of the time you need to plan for some rain, which we experienced one day, but otherwise enjoyed really unusually blue skies.
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Yeah, I think they have a lot of gray and a good bit of rain from what I understand. And that was pretty unusual. So definitely pack some kind of rain jacket or an umbrella. And I would say comfortable.
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say comfortable. I mean, rain's no big deal.
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Yeah, for sure. Because you don't want to get somewhere and just be like, oh, it's going to rain, you know, the whole time I can't do anything. So just, yeah, that preparation is definitely a good idea. I would would say comfortable walking shoes for sure because we ended up doing a good bit of walking between those different things and if you're going to do any of the walking tours and stuff like that as well so it can be a little chilly at times of the year so just definitely I would say dress and have you know have some layers too and I always like to have some kind of hat and gloves you know if, if it is in the cooler seasons. And so as I mentioned before, I would say be sure to have some kind of dressy casual or dressy clothes on hand for dinner. I was glad that because we hadn't planned to and that Monterey Bay fish grotto ended up being nicer, but just having something, you know, black pants and more dressy shoes. But otherwise you could do, you know, jeans or in the summer shorts and stuff like that. And then definitely your camera because that, you know, if you enjoy photography, so like you were saying, Scott, architecture, photography, the bridges, the color with the yellow. And so if you have your, you know, your camera with you, you could enjoy capturing. Definitely
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Definitely the lines on those bridges and that Aztec gold color, you know, was pretty stunning. So after hearing this, I hope that you're thinking about a good time to go and visit Pittsburgh. I also want to know what seats I should try to get for the best view in PNC park. Send me an email, Scott at sunshine travelers.com and let me know what you think and also what we missed and need to go back and do the next time. We always love hearing from you and are inspired by your travel stories.
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