The sun returned in a timely fashion just as I set out again – after three cold and damp days off – to cycle the first of two days that would take me to within a short ferry ride of New York City. Today I would be riding right into, and then out of, the huge urban sprawl that is the city of Philadelphia. In truth, that would be almost a full day in itself from where I began, and I would just about have time to press on a little further into New Jersey and stop a few miles short of the university town of Princeton.
I said my goodbyes and thank yous to my family and enjoyed an hour of quiet roads and bike paths that took me some of the way in. The earlier suburbs were pleasant enough. Then I reached Woodland Avenue, a very long, very straight road that led all the way in to the city centre, by way of countless traffic lights and intersections. For most of the way it was pretty run down. I certainly saw no woodland. There was a lot of starting and stopping and trying to arrive at each set of lights when they were green, but that is not easy. Eventually the distant skyscrapers began to loom much larger and I crossed some kind of invisible line that meant everything suddenly felt like the middle of a big, important city.
Philadelphia really is huge. The first area of large buildings was a group of modern hospitals, which then merged into the somewhat older and more genteel surroundings of The University of Pennsylvania. But I wasn’t yet in the middle of the city. I crossed the Schuylkill River by the huge and lovely 30th Street train station with its massive Greek columns, and then cycled the length of Market Street, the main commercial artery. It led me between impressive buildings of increasing height until l reached the elaborate clock tower and central landmark of Philadelphia City Hall, with the statue of William Penn perched on top. This building is a late nineteenth century architectural masterpiece, and one day I would like to return and take a tour up to the observation deck, high up the clock tower. From here you would be able to look across to the spires and towers of the nearby modern skyscrapers. There seem to be more of them every time I visit.
But today I satisfied myself with lunch outdoors in the square next to the many dancing fountains that emerge from the floor and squirt water to different heights. Delighted children were running about in between, and sometimes through, the jets and inevitably getting quite wet. It wasn’t really warm enough to be wearing wet clothes, so I hope they came prepared. An hour somehow slipped past without me getting very much further, and I knew that I would have a similarly disrupted journey away from the city, so I felt it was time to move. I paid my respects to Independence Hall and then set out along a cycle path that showed some promise of following the bank of the Delaware River. But things got rather industrial quite soon, so I found myself on another long, straight road with endless traffic lights. At one point I had the option of following a road that contained what looked like miles of elevated railway above it. It filled the street and stretched away like an endless metal bunk bed. But the road underneath was very congested, so I found another option and pressed on until a small roadside ice cream shop caught my attention. Cyclists need fuel.
The rest of the day was spent on quiet roads that took me along, and at times within sight of, the Delaware River, once known as the workshop of the world. There were some more attractive stretches and I was particularly taken with the small riverside town of Bristol, PA. But eventually I reached the point where the river had to be crossed,. I did so as I entered the city of Trenton and the state of New Jersey by passing gingerly over a metal grilled bridge surface. Trenton is the state capital of New Jersey and I could see the small gold dome of the Capitol shining in the late sunshine. I like to tick these off as I reach them, and there were a collection of large, official looking buildings all grouped together on raised ground. However, just one street away a very different Trenton presented itself, and I began to see why people had been encouraging me to give it a miss. It was truly a depressing place with little to restore any feeling of hope or enthusiasm. I have possibly not seen anywhere so completely run down and depressing in all my travels throughout this country, and I was ultimately glad to leave it behind. It felt like a place on its knees, where everyone had more or less given up. Some of the worst deprivation was right in the centre of town, within a stone’s throw of the seat of government. I wonder how much time the state lawmakers spend looking beyond their own polished front door. Not much, based on the evidence before me.
My final excitement for the day was to discover that my hotel room had been cancelled. The hotel was right on busy route one and Vanessa, the receptionist, told me that they were overbooked. I wasn’t having this. No one had informed me and, in any case, I had nowhere else to go and only a bicycle for transport, a fact which I made clear. Vanessa then found me a room – a lucky recent cancellation by another guest she said – and all was well that ended well. She even rang Expedia for me to complain, but I wasn’t in the mood for a long argument with them. No one wanted to claim responsibility, each party blaming the other, but I pointed out that their arguments between themselves were of no interest to me. I got a refund and an apology. Hmm.
