Pittsburgh is a city that I am well-acquainted with. I visit once a year to attend the USA Dance National Ballroom Dancesport Championships, a ballroom dance competition with competitors from all over the nation. 

It is always the highlight of my year, as its the largest ballroom competition in USA Dance. The evening shows, where the highest level amateur and professional couples compete are well worth the cost of a spectator ticket.

The event is hosted at the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown, and each previous time I have attended, the hotel is where I have spent all my time. I knew that the hotel is very nice, and the location is exceptional. It sits right across the street from Point State Park, and it’s about a five-minute walk from Market Square, which has a ton of great restaurants. 

After a few years of just seeing the view from the hotel, curiosity got the best of me, so this year, I extended my stay by an extra day. That way, I could get a sense of what Pittsburgh is all about. 

Breakfast at Alihan’s Mediterranean Cuisine

My day to tour the city was on a Monday morning. I woke up with quite the appetite, and the local spot recommended to us was Alihan’s Mediterranean Cuisine. I was staying at a local spot with my husband and four friends, and it was actually two of our friends who had discovered this place a few years previous. It has great food and coffee, along with some really great vegetarian options. 

It was quiet when we entered, and we spent a long minute perusing the menu. Like the name of the restaurant implies, they specialize in Mediterranean food, particularly Turkish and Greek dishes. We ordered a pot of tea for the table, and one of my friends got the Sultan’s Coffee – a very nice cup of premium Turkish coffee served with some small bites of baklava and Turkish delight. Everything came in beautiful glass and silverware. 

As nice as the drinks were, for me the star of the show was the food. I got a shrimp sandwich which was stuffed with perfectly cooked shrimp, tons of ripe avocado, a spicy aioli, and greens. The bread was crisp and buttery. It got quiet at our table when the food arrived! We lingered over the meal, draining the teapot and appreciating the laidback service. It was nice to not feel rushed out of the restaurant. 

After our filling breakfast, we angled North so we could cross the Roberto Clemente Bridge and poke around Allegheny-West. We were very lucky; the weather had warmed up over the course of the weekend, so we were wandering the city on a pleasant 60-70 °F, partly cloudy day.

The walk was largely flat even as we crossed the bridge. Interestingly, every major bridge in Pittsburgh is painted bright yellow, both for visibility and for thematic reasons. (And there are a lot of bridges in Pittsburgh!) The city colors are black and gold, which are pulled from the coat of arms of William Pitt the Elder, for whom Pittsburgh was named. Black and yellow are used as theme colors for all three sports teams, and they even show up in popular media. The Wiz Khalifa song “Black and Yellow” is an homage to the city’s colors. Thematically, the city is very cohesive. 

Because of this, the city has a very clear identity. Walking through Pittsburgh feels very different from walking through New York or Chicago or Atlanta. Aside from the dozens of yellow bridges and plentiful steelwork, the architecture was fairly varied. We passed a theater and some churches in a Gothic revival style next door to modern glass filled skyscrapers. As we crossed the water, we got to see PNC Park, the city’s baseball stadium. 

National Aviary

A little further on, we arrived at Allegheny Commons Park. The park is central to the North Shore. It is a large greenspace that houses monuments, playgrounds, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, a few apartments, sports fields, and tons of walking paths. It is also home to the National Aviary which was our destination! 

The aviary specializes in birds but has a few other animals as well. The urban location makes it very easy to get to. Our walk from Alihan’s was maybe 15 minutes long. It was a fairly busy day, with people, kids, and staff buzzing around the center. The Aviary has three halls where the birds and animals are free-roaming (free-flying, if you will). They also feature extensive condor and penguin habitats that you can view from multiple angles. Owls, eagles, and lorikeets are housed in separate exhibits throughout the building. 

The aviary also does a really good job offering interactive activities. Some have a small additional fee, and some are included with admission. You can feed the lorikeets from small nectar cups, feed the African penguins, hang with the two-toed sloth, check out the owls and falcons up close, or watch the keepers feed in the main rooms. It depends on the day and the activity’s availability (some things book up pretty quick and only have a certain number of spots). 

There were also a ton of activities for kids, including a flight simulator and a theater. On the outside of the aviary, near the Andean condor exhibit, a small playground lets kids climb mushrooms and perch in a bird’s nest. The penguin exhibit had some small tunnels that kids (and some adults!) delighted in crawling through. The Aviary takes about two hours to see, and is a great experience. The aviary had a ton of beautiful, exotic birds that you could get quite close to. 

Randyland

After the aviary our group split up, as there were a slew of flight times to accommodate. My husband and I were free to continue exploring the North Shore and Allegheny. A short walk away is Randyland– a place that I had found online and got the sense for, but is very hard to describe. Randyland is an urban common space that is part folk-art museum, part community commons, and part color explosion.

Randyland is completely free, and definitely a unique thing to do. Wander through the courtyard and admire the painted and crafted found object sculptures. Read the signs and murals and get a sense of the ideals behind Randyland – beauty, peace, and love. Randyland has a number of unique elements. My favorite was the large-scale neighborhood map on the side of the Yellow Castle. Scattered throughout the space are little free libraries, community message boards, neighborhood information, and newspaper dispensers. One of Randy’s core tenants is the idea of community, and the infectious nature of kindness. 

It doesn’t take long to walk through the square and around the main house. I was very lucky, and as we were examining the neighborhood map, Randy himself came outside. It was great to actually meet the man behind everything. Randy is a unique spirit – he is very friendly and is more than happy to share stories about his life. We attracted a small crowd by the time we left. The best thing to see was him greeting every person on the street. Every car that drove by slowed down to wave at Randy- he is clearly a beloved figure. 

A good thing to know before you visit and possibly meet Randy is that he communicates differently than most – he talks loudly and passionately, and he is very direct and straightforward. His story can be hard to hear because so much of his life was impacted by poverty and hardship. This can be startling as he speaks very honestly about his life. At the same time, I think it is important for people to hear his story. Ultimately, his words are about compassion for one another, and his message is about peace and love. Meeting Randy is meeting someone who picks kindness every single day. 

Lunch, Primanti Brothers

After a morning filled with color and emotion, I wasn’t feeling very hungry. If my breakfast was feeling kind of distant so we decided to break into the sandwiches we had grabbed yesterday from a Pittsburgh classic – Primanti Bros. They started as a food cart in 1993, and has expanded into a chain with locations around the city.

They are known for their quintessential Pittsburgh cuisine: sandwiches packed high with meat but also piled with french fries and vinegar-based coleslaw. It’s a really good combination. The fries balance out the umami of the meat, while adding a salty tang. The coleslaw adds a bit of an acidic bite that enhances the taste of everything. It reminded me a bit of California burritos (a burrito with fries inside) but with more of a Southern spin rather than a Mexican influence.  

Riverwalk and Fort Duquesne

For the afternoon, we were feeling pretty chill. We wandered south and along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail that borders the river. People jogged, biked, and walked their dogs along the paved riverwalk. We stopped at the Korean War Memorial to read the plaques and pay our respects. The architect had left an artist’s statement, which made looking at the memorial all the more interesting. A large part of the memorial was dedicated to POWs and those who were killed in action. We walked all the way to the Fort Duquesne Bridge, and up the stairs that led to the pedestrian bridge alongside it. 

The Fort Duquesne Bridge led us to Point State Park, which has a ton to do. The very tip of the park features a large fountain where you can dip your feet and look out over the water. Further in, you can trace the outline of where Fort Duquesne used to guard the waterways. You can also visit the Fort Pitt museum, which is housed in the ruins of Fort Pitt. The displays inside address the French and Indian War and the indigenous people of what is now western Pennsylvania. The museum is small, but packed with information.

After our wander through the park, it was just about time to head to the airport. We had stashed our luggage at the bellhop stand of the Wyndham Grand (very generous of them considering we weren’t staying there).

Dinner, Christos Mediterranean Grille

If we had time we would have gone to dinner at Christos Mediterranean Grille, which I had been to before. It is owned by an older gentleman who serves his family’s recipes. The time that we did go, we were served more delicious food than we could eat. The owner was friendly, and the food was delicious. I figured out that I like hummus a lot more than I thought I did! The prices also weren’t bad- everything was a la carte, but $4.00 for a side of  his mom’s lemon potatoes was a steal!

After we were headed to the airport, and were driving out of the city, I wished that I had had time to do a few more things. I would like to spend more time in Pittsburgh, and here are some things I plan to do next time I am in town.

The Short List

Wigle Distillery

I am a big fan of touring distilleries, breweries, and wineries. Wigle is a craft whiskey distillery named for Phillip Wigle, a Pennsylvania distiller who sparked the Whiskey Rebellion, a fight against the taxation of whiskey. Wigle Distillery was the first distillery in Pittsburgh after the end of Prohibition. I happen to love whiskey, and I always appreciate a good tour to see what each distillery does differently. They offer Saturday tours, daily tastings and food at their distillery. Their spirits are for sale in a few other locations as well. To me it seems like a good blend of history and fun. 

University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning

The Cathedral of Learning is exactly what it sounds like: a towering neo-gothic monolith sprouting from the University of Pittsburgh campus. It was built to alleviate overcrowding with the idea that they could build up instead of out. It is a functioning campus building, with classrooms, a three-story common room, lecture halls, and everything else you need in a university building.

The building is just as elaborate on the inside. Funding for its construction was partly done by offering “nationality rooms” for each group that donated, a room in the building would be decorated in their native style. The program was successful, and the building now has 29 themed rooms. You can go inside and for a small fee get an audio guide which will take you through all the nationality rooms. As an architect, I found this really difficult to pass up. However, I could not swing it, as the campus was just located so far away from my hotel. 

Bayernhof Museum 

I cannot write a better description for the Bayernhof museum than what is on their website. “This extremely unique, 19,000 square foot museum (the former residence of Charles B. Brown, III, the Museum’s founder) houses a world-class collection of music boxes and other antique automatic music machines, as well as many other fascinating items.

The building itself provides guests with a most enjoyable experience as they pass from one unbelievable room to another, at times through hidden doors and secret passageways.” Uh, yes, I would like to wander around the Scooby Doo house listening to the music boxes and self-playing instruments! The only reason we didn’t go is because it’s near the Zoo and Aquarium, kind of outside of downtown. 

If you are looking for some other short city tours check out my article on Washington D.C!