Moving to suburban Philly after college, I got a lot of flack about being from Western Pa.  “Pittsburgh?  That’s not a city!”  And then I moved to New York for graduate school.  You can just imagine what I heard.  Yet, when getting together with my childhood friends, I can think of no more fitting gathering spot than the city of our youth.  With a wealth of museums, parks, shopping districts, restaurants and bars Pittsburgh offers both the casual visitor and hardcore tourist countless things to do. 

This summer my friends and I revisited the Andy Warhol Museum, the largest American museum devoted to a single artist.  Want to see Elvis, the Last Supper, Silver Clouds or Brillo Boxes writ large?  The Warhol’s got them as well as 4,000 other works of his art.  

Along with a love of New York, the Velvet Underground, eccentricity, art and cats, the late pop artist and I share a birthday.  I found it quite fitting to be there, admiring the best of Andy and his Wild Raspberries cookbook, less than two weeks before our special day.   

A short ride up the Duquesne Incline brought us to observation platform on Mount Washington.  From there we looked out onto the three rivers, ball parks, Carnegie Science Center, the Point and skyline.  A few feet away on Grandview Avenue we had a wealth of fine-dining-with-a-view options, including such standbys as the Tin Angel and the Le Mont.

Back on river level we wandered around the Strip District.  Once home to factories, mills and produce and meat wholesalers, the Strip now houses bars and restaurants as well as cookware, coffee and antique shops. It also has outdoor vendors selling food, tchotchkes, stacks of Myron Cope’s gold-and-black “Terrible Towel” as well as Steelers, Pirates and Penguins paraphernalia.   

In Shadyside, our home base for the weekend, we shopped and dined along Walnut Street.  The tree-lined street offered a mix of independent boutiques such as Tennis Village, The Picket Fence and Shadyside Variety Store and upscale chains including Apple and Williams-Sonoma.  We walked away with lighter wallets and larger credit card bills but also with some great finds. The best part of visiting Pittsburgh? The opportunity to spend time with dear friends whom I could never see often enough.