One Day in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! (Duquesne Incline, iconic FOOD, & Randyland)

After spending a day hiking, biking, and training our way through Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, we have made it a couple hours east to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My mom's side of the family is all from near Pittsburgh, and growing up I came here a lot and always loved coming to Pittsburgh. So I'm super excited that I'm back here and we can explore it together. We did come to Pittsburgh last year to visit Adam's great aunt, but we didn't really do any exploring or sightseeing, so our goal today is to do all the touristy things and try a couple iconic local food items. The Duquesne Incline opened in May 1877 and it carried passengers and goods up and down Coal Hill, now called Mount Washington. The track gauge is an unusual 5 feet, is 800 feet long, 400 feet in height, and is inclined at a 30 degree angle. There used to be many of these inclines around the city, but only two remain today, the Duquesne Incline and the Monongahela Incline, and while they still do transport locals, they're definitely more of a tourist attraction now, and it costs $5, exact cash, we read exact is key, like they don't have change, to go up to the top to see amazing views of the city. We made it to the top. We haven't seen the view yet, but the guy at the bottom told us that there's a museum you can go check out, and it has like the underbelly basically, all the wheels and all the gears for the incline. He said this is from 1877, this is nuts! Check out this view! You can see the entire downtown area of Pittsburgh, including the three rivers, the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela Rivers, and they all converge right there. You can see lots of bridges behind me, and in fact, one of Pittsburgh's nicknames is City of Bridges, because there are 446 bridges. Pittsburgh is such a gorgeous city. There are these tree covered hills just surrounding the entire city, all the rivers, the downtown area is really cool, the bridges, it's just very picturesque. Ever since we were here last time, I just loved it instantly. I just think it's so beautiful, I don't know, I can't put into words, but it's probably one of my favorite larger cities in the U.S. That was so much fun! We headed across the rivers to the Strip District and grabbed coffee at a spot called La Prima, which is an Italian style espresso bar that's been here in the Strip District since 1988, and is a taste of Italy here in Pittsburgh. We had read that lots of Italians, it's a local gathering place for Italians, and we just thought that was super cool, so we got a macchiato, a cappuccino, and we also got something that we tried in Rome for the first time, which is a granita de caffè con panna, which is basically an espresso slushy with, of course, whipped cream on top. They are just so delicious, and it just took us way back, all the way to Rome and Italy. Awesome. We miss you Italy. Yeah. So a little bit of history about this area, the Strip District is a narrow half mile strip of land that back in the late 1800s and early 1900s was an industrial area with many steel mills and factories like U.S. Steel, Heinz, and Westinghouse, and eventually produce merchants and grocers. Today, it has been revitalized a bit with new merchants, international grocers, restaurants for many cuisines and shops, but it still maintains its historic industrial character. One of the most iconic businesses here in the Strip District is Permanente Bros, which opened up in the Strip District in 1933 as a sandwich cart to feed the workers in the area and quickly expanded to a storefront. It's one of the most popular touristy restaurants here in Pittsburgh, and we've heard mixed things about it, but the history of it's pretty cool. The sandwich is very unique, and we figured, when in Pittsburgh, we've got to give it a shot. So what makes Permanente Bros unique from other sandwich shops is they put the french fries on the sandwich with the coleslaw. So the story behind that is one day somebody brought potatoes to the shop, they cut them up and they fried them, and they looked really good, and some customers requested them, and the owner just put them on the sandwich, and it became a really big hit, and it's a really convenient meal because the workers in the area would have the sandwich so they could eat in one hand and drive with the other. They have a bunch of different meat options, and you basically just choose your meat and the sandwich is all the same. So we got the capicola with cheese, and capicola is a spicy Italian ham. It comes with tons of fries, coleslaw, tomato, and capicola and cheese. We heard that this was the best one, and I meant to get an egg on there, but I forgot. So first impressions, I love that there's no plates, it's just paper like this, kind of reminds me of a barbecue joint, and then picking up the sandwich, one, it's absolutely massive as you can see, but the bread, can you see how soft that is? It's like a what, Adam? That is definitely the definition of pillowy. The bread is awesome. Like I said, nice and soft, got good flavor, but what's really cool is the mix of like, this stuff is cold, this stuff is warm, and it's just a really good mix of hot and cold that contrast, and then this is like spicy and savory and cheesy, and then this side here is kind of sweet, tangy, and kind of tart in the coleslaw there. Awesome little flavor combo and heat, cold kind of combo contrast. I'm trying to think of my plan of attack. That is such a fun mix of textures, and to be honest, my expectations were somewhat low for this place, just because like we said, we had heard, like some people are like it's really overhyped, but that's a, I think that's a really good sandwich, it has really good spice, and yeah, the warmth of it, I don't know. We headed to Point State Park, which is a free state park in downtown Pittsburgh, and right behind this waterfall, which is currently spraying me with its mist, is where the three rivers that we mentioned earlier converge. But this park is home to more than just the three rivers and the big giant water fountain, it's also home to remains of forts from during the French and Indian War, as well as the American Revolution, including the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, which is the oldest architectural landmark in Pittsburgh, and it is also the nation's only authenticated pre-revolutionary war structure west of the Allegheny Mountains. And on the ground behind me are what look like strips of pavements or pathways, but they're actually the markings of the exact location of Fort Duquesne, which was built by the French in 1754. We're currently driving a little north of downtown to what may be the most unique and colorful place in all of Pittsburgh, Randy Land. Randy Land is the home of artist Randy Gilson, who bought a foreclosed home in the area for $10,000 in 1995, painted it yellow, and started decorating it with all the junk he'd find. The area was pretty rough at the time, but Randy transformed the house into a colorful masterpiece which therefore brightened up the area, and now the public can visit between noon and dark every day, for free, but donations are appreciated. Oh wow, that's pretty cool. This is one of the coolest places ever. It's so quirky. There's so much stuff. You could spend days here just looking at everything. It's like a homemade theme park kind of a thing. It's so colorful. I love it. What I think is so amazing about this place is that he took things that people just toss out and consider junk, and turned it into art, and turned it into a place that people come to to get photos and just see for themselves. It's just so colorful, and he really just brought life back to things that otherwise would have been trash. For our final stop in Pittsburgh, we are trying one more iconic food, pierogies. So back at the turn of the 20th century, the steel and coal industry brought many immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe to Pittsburgh, and with them, they brought some of their native dishes, like pierogies, that are still popular here today. Pierogies are typically a Polish dish, which are dumplings that are filled with either savory or sweet filling, boiled, and then sometimes pan-fried before serving. And for our pierogie feast, we came to a spot called Pierogies Plus, which has been serving pierogies here in Pittsburgh since 1991. The owner, Helen Manarino, is from Poland and worked in her family's restaurant in Poland before moving to the United States in 1974, so you know these are going to be legit. We got a dozen hot pierogies. They do also sell them cold, so there was a guy in front of us that bought like three dozen of them cold, so you can make them when you get home. But we got six potato and cheese, and another six of meat, which we asked, and it's ground beef. It comes with this onion sauce on top as well. Yeah, inside of here is just a giant scoop of mashed potatoes. It kind of tastes like Thanksgiving, and it's just a big scoop of mashed potatoes and cheese inside a dough. It's very comforting and very hearty. Yup, that is mashed potatoes wrapped in dough. I love mashed potatoes, and then it's just wrapped up in more carbs. There's really no way you can beat that. The ground beef inside of these meat ones has really good spice and seasoning to it. Nice little spicy flavor. Yeah, these are just very hearty and filling. I think I could only eat a few of these, and I'd feel really full. And this onion sauce here, it looks like it's like butter and onions, and it just adds a nice onion-y, butter-y flavor to it. I know you're not supposed to call meat soft, but there's no other way to describe this. This meat is just so soft, so tender, has such great flavor. These are pockets of delicious happiness. We had the best day exploring Pittsburgh. I knew I really liked the city last year when we visited, but today just solidified it. I'm in love with Pittsburgh. I think it's, like I said earlier, one of my favorite major cities in the US. I just, I can't explain it. Something about it. I just love it. But for now, we're going to spend some time with my great Aunt Laverne. She mentioned maybe coming back into the city tomorrow, maybe taking a boat ride, seeing the city from boat. That would be really cool. So we're going to spend some time with her, and then we're going to continue our road trip east to New York. Woo! Man, I got to get like the triple D, like Guy Fury, like elbows out, like get into this thing. Boom! Yeah! Adam's so excited that he was a one-take wonder on that one. I was going into that. I thought it was going to take many tries at that, but I got it first time.