A couple of weeks after our NYC trip, we took a road trip for a long weekend in Pittsburgh. On the way we stopped at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and did the guided tour. To do a guided tour, you have to buy timed tickets so I made sure to buy tickets for an afternoon tour, to allow for us to not have to leave Virginia at the crack of dawn and have time to stop for Cracker Barrel breakfast. Fallingwater is absolutely stunning in person. It was also quite a bit bigger than I expected. I think my favorite part (beyond the placement of a house on a waterfall) was the corner windows. It was something I didn’t know I needed until I visited this house.

From Fallingwater, it was a little over an hour drive get to our hotel in Pittsburgh. The last time we visited Pittsburgh (also the first time we visited Pittsburgh) was three years ago and we stayed a little further away from the city center in Green Tree. This time we were able to stay closer to downtown, which was perfect for all of the things we had planned for the weekend. If you’ve never spent any time in Pittsburgh, you definitely should. For my money, it’s gotta be the most underrated city in the United States. Allow me to show you why I think so. Here are a few shots from the first night, walking around downtown:

Spotted a Lamborghini Huracan downtown. Don’t mind the blurriness

On this particular trip, we were working with the guidance of a friend of mine from work. She was a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh and had lived there for five years. Thanks to her, we had an extensive and detailed list of recommendations. The first night we had a light dinner at Butcher and the Rye, a beautiful two story restaurant and whiskey bar. We sampled the gnudi, Sunday gravy, and the cheese plate. They were all excellent (especially the Sunday gravy) and based on the menu, everything else looked incredible. This is definitely a place I would go back to and spend more money.

On Sunday morning we made our way by foot to the Andy Warhol Bridge and came across the interactive art display Los Trompos on the way.

Hello random 996 Porsche 911

Andy Warhol Bridge, which spans the Allegheny River spans

View of downtown from the other side of Andy Warhol Bridge

Enjoying the Andy Warhol Museum

Among the many interesting things I learned about Andy Warhol – at the request of BMW, he hand painted the M1 racing car for the 24-hours of Le Mans in 1979

We enjoyed some pretty solid burritos for lunch at El Burro before making our way to a uniquely weird place called Randyland. Seriously, look at this place.

We also came across a few beautifully decorated houses on the walk from Randyland to the Mattress Factory.

We also came across this unexpected display on a garage door, words from Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas:

The Mattress Factory, in its own words:

The Mattress Factory was super cool and we just happened to be there on a day when admission was free of charge. We visited all of the available exhibits in the main building as well as the annexes that were a short walk away.

Art by Professor Alisha Wormsley

View from the stairwell of the Mattress Factory

The exterior of the main building of the Mattress Factory

Repetitive Vision by Yayoi Kusama

I’m now realizing I’ll need to add a second post for Pittsburgh but in the meanwhile, I’ll close this post with some photos I took of downtown Pittsburgh from Mount Washington. This might be my favorite cityscape in the United States. Thanks for reading. 🙂