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In the city of bridges, FTF waves its Terrible Towel and explores both the well-known attractions and the smaller hidden venues only Pittsburgh locals know about.

Formed at the head of three rivers snaking through the Pennsylvania hillsides, the city of steel rivals its sister metropolis, Philadelphia, in cultural diversity, museum attractions, shopping and cuisine galore.

Featuring a catawampus collection of cartoonishly steep streets and enough yellow and gold to make one reconsider their own zeal for their favorite football team, Pittsburgh can be broken down into several major areas of interest to visiting families.

East Side Eats & Attractions

The East side is a culinary wonderland for the hungry tourist, particularly the Strip District area, where shop after shop produces sumptuous and inviting smells of local and not-so-local eats. We love to start out the day at Pamela’s Diner, where the meals are rich and hearty. Upstairs, there’s even a small shop and café, La Feria, which sells beautiful, vibrant hand-woven tapestries and wood-carved Dia de los Meurtos figurines.

Once spanned by industrial and warehouse spaces, the Strip District today features trendy nightclubs and food markets, giving the area the feel of a bustling open-air market by day and a teen pleasing place to stroll at night.

Venturing off one of the side streets, our noses lead us to one of the locations of the famous Primanti Brothers, where sandwiches the size of your face are packed with French fries, coleslaw, and almost every topping imaginable.

While there are numerous places to nip in for a quick afternoon snack, the Coca Café and Dozen Bake Shop are great places to relax with a copy of the local newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and blend in with the locals. Located north of the Strip District in Lawrenceville, or Lola to its residents, this recently up-and-coming section features the 16:62 Design Zone, a 56-block area full of shops with unique home furnishings, antiques and objets d’art.

Though styled as a dive bar featuring live performances most weekends, lower Lawrenceville’s Brillobox has a great atmosphere perfect for a relaxed lunch. Grab a plushy seat at one of the large family-sized booths and enjoy a burger or one of the menu’s many vegetarian options.

Entering the heart of the East Side toward the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History provides a whole day of exploration for the whole family. Our favorite things to do here include touching an ancient dinosaur bone, exploring room after room of dazzling rocks and gemstones, and climbing into a massive, vibrating replica of a whale heart.

Pittsburgh North Side

Across the Allegheny River on the north side of the city, Pittsburgh’s downtown Cultural District has five theatres for live performances of ballet, theater, opera, Broadway, symphony and contemporary dance. The baseball fans in us love to gawk at the impressive Heinz Field and PNC Park -- home to the Steelers and the Pirates -- while the more artsy types indulge themselves in gawking at retro paintings and unusual portraits at the Andy Warhol and Mattress Factory museums. 

The former features a FTF favorite, the “Silver Cloud” room, an area where kids can interact with giant floating pillow-shaped balloons or lie down as if watching the clouds go by, while simultaneously changing the art space by simply being present in the room. Keep in mind, however, that both these museums may have exhibits whose modern art content is not entirely appropriate for children.

Nearby, the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum provides a full day’s worth of entertainment with its many fun hi-tech learning activities, as well as a floor reserved entirely for aquatics.