Atlantic City - Vegas by the Sea!

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We're not actually staying in Philadelphia. Our friends live in the small town of Atco, New Jersey, where there are no buses or taxis, so it's either go by foot or by bicycle. We opted for the latter and cycled the 4.5 miles to the train station in 100F heat. It was hard work as it is some time since we last rode bikes!!

40 minutes by train is the coastal resort of Atlantic City. Think Vegas! Casinos and tackiness abound, but unlike Vegas we saw no signs of the sleazy side of life and AC has a nice board-walk to stroll along. Some don't stroll though, opting instead to be pushed along in a moving chair, a little like a rickshaw but with leg power, not pedal power, moving you along.

It was too hot for us to lie on the beach so we had a good walk around, ducking into a casino or a shop from time to time to cool off in the air conditioning. The new Caesar's Pier Shopping Centre was nice with some rather up market shops, including the Apple Store. Bizarrely Russ seems to be the only person he knows who doesn't want an i-Pad! Every hour on the hour a huge fountain at the ocean end of the pier springs to life. It dances around to the music and is really quite entertaining.

One of the shops features a model of Lucy the elephant. She is made from thousands of jelly beans! The real Lucy is a huge elephant in nearby Margate where you can apparently climb up to get a view of the city. We didn't go there!!

It was nice to walk down past the piers in various states of disrepair. We had been warned not to walk to the end of the promenade though as it gets decidedly dodgy the further from the tourist zone you get. We got as far as the latest building project before turning back.

On our way back to the train station we stopped off at one of the Outlet shopping centres before going to a great brew pub to watch Spain v Germany in the World Cup semi-final.

Ok, so Atlantic City isn't going to be top of many people's priorities when travelling in the USA, but it is worth a day out if you are in the Philadelphia area.

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