The mile-long Benjamin Franklin Parkway, known as Museum Row - or, less convincingly, as "America's Champs-Elysees" - sweeps northwest from City Hall to the colossal Museum of Art in Fairmount Park , an area of countryside annexed by the city in the nineteenth century. Spanning nine hundred scenic acres on both sides of the Schuylkill River, this is one of the world's largest landscaped city parks, with jogging, biking and hiking trails, early American homes, an all-wars memorial to the state's black soldiers, and a zoo - the country's first - at 3400 Girard Ave (daily 9.30am-5pm, hours vary in summer; $10.50; tel 215/243-1100). In the late 1960s, local residents Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier all but brought the city to a standstill with the announcement one afternoon that they were heading for Fairmount for an informal slug-out.

Sylvester Stallone later immortalized the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Tues & Thurs-Sun 10am-5pm, Wed 10am-8.45pm; $10, pay what you wish all day Sun), 26th Street and Franklin Parkway, by running up them in the film Rocky , but he missed out on a real treat inside: one of the finest collections in the US, with a twelfth-century French cloister, Renaissance art, a complete Robert Adam interior from a 1765 house in London's Berkeley Square, Rubens tapestries, Pennsylvania Dutch crafts and Shaker furniture , a strong Impressionist collection, and the world's most extensive collection of the works of Marcel Duchamp . Exhibits are displayed in an easy-to-follow chronological order. On Wednesday nights, there are excellent programs of live jazz and classical music along with film showings and artistic debate - all included in the admission price.

A few blocks away at Franklin Parkway and 22nd Street (Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; donation; tel 215/763-8100), the exquisite Rodin Museum , marble-walled and set in a shady garden with a green pool, holds the largest collection of Rodin's Impressionistic sculptures and casts outside Paris, including The Thinker, The Burghers of Calais and The Gates of Hell . Among the rare books at the Free Library of Philadelphia , 19th and Vine streets (Mon-Thurs 9am-9pm, Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 9am-5pm, tours at 11am; free; tel 215/686-5322), are cuneiform tablets from 3000 BC, medieval manuscripts, first editions of Dickens and Poe, and such intriguing titles as the 1807 Inquiry into the Conduct of the Princess of Wales .

Over the road in the vast Franklin Institute Science Museum (N 20th St and Benjamin Franklin Parkway; Sun-Thurs 9.30am-5pm, Fri-Sat 9am-9pm; tel 215/448-1200) are a Planetarium ($6), the four-story OMNIVERSE movie theater ($7.50) and the Mandell Futures Center ($9.75) - a state-of-the-art facility filled with entertaining gadgets such as a hugely popular machine on which you can see (disappointingly hazy) images of your face aged by 25 years. A combination ticket ($14.50) covers admission to all three. Continuing the educational theme, the nearby Academy of Natural Sciences exhibits dinosaurs, mummies and gems (Mon-Fri 10am-4.30pm, Sat & Sun 10am-5pm; $9; tel 215-299-1000), while the Please Touch Museum , 210 N 21st St (daily 9am-4.30pm; $6.50), is a hands-on adventureland aimed at youngsters.

Museum Row

• Museum Row

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