Articles

I’ve had many articles published over the years. Here is a selection.

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh isn’t your usual tourist destination, but my son and his family recently emigrated there, so my husband and I set off to explore the city.

Unlike many American cities, there are several direct flights from London Heathrow to Pittsburgh every day with British Airways. The flight takes between 7-8 hours.

Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania’s second largest city with a population of around 300,000 and is named in honour of British stateman, William Pitt. Built where three rivers meet -the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the Ohio, it has a number of bridges – 446 in total -most of them made of yellow metal. A river trip is highly recommended to enjoy the river views.

There are other things to recommend in Pittsburgh too. H.J. Heinz was born there of German parentage. He started the business after growing horseradish in his garden. The Heinz Museum is an interesting place to visit, especially to see how the packaging has changed over the years and in the different cultures.

For the keen cyclist, like my husband, Bicycle Heaven is a must. The world’s largest bicycle museum and shop, it was founded in 1966 after Craig Morrow found a discarded bike. It contains a huge reserve of bicycle parts for the keen cyclist to either repair, trade-in or rent a bike.

The museum also houses lots of different bike models from antique to modern, including themed bikes from the Beatles era and the original four-seater bike of 1970’s group, the Monkees. In addition it is home to the only bicycle car in existence with its two wheels at the front and one at the rear, the reverse of the Reliant Robin car of ‘Only Fools and Horses’ fame!

Famous for its steel reserves obtained from the mineral rich Allegheny Mountains surrounding Pittsburgh, since the 1990’s the city has focused instead on its large medical providers. These include the University of Pittsburgh and the Allegheny Health network as some of the largest providers, but there are other colleges and universities too, with the Carnegie Mellon University specialising in research and development. The latter takes its name from Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American industrialist who helped to lead the steel industry expansion in Pittsburgh and was a great philanthropist.

A great view over the city can be obtained from the Duquesne Incline which ascends over the city to the Washington Mount area, you can then descend on the Monongahela decline, the two cars are pulled by cables and act as counterweights for one another.

The city, for all its many skyscrapers, has several parks – Frick Park,

Schenley Park, Westinghouse Park, Mellon Park and Point State Park. Point State Park houses the Fort Pitt Museum with its background history of America and the Native American Indians.

A trip to Pittsburgh wouldn’t be complete without visiting a sporting event. One of the most popular events is, of course, American Football and the local team are known as the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, Soccer has also been played in the city since 1999, and the Pittsburgh Riverhounds have their own ground too. The Hockey team are known as the Penguins and the Baseball team as the Pittsburgh Pirates.

We had tickets for the Baseball game. It was a sunny day with large crowds and a good atmosphere, unfortunately, the Pirates lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 5-1! At least we could comfort ourselves with the traditional hot dogs and cold beers.

Although there are many international restaurants in Pittsburgh, we discovered that a lot of them only serve soft drinks because of the strict Pennsylvania alcohol laws. But if you check with the restaurant, you can sometimes take in your own alcohol purchased from the Off Duty shops.

Pittsburgh has so much to offer the visitor and as we only managed to see a small part of the sights, another visit beckons.