Vaughan to Pittsburgh: the three-rivers weekend by chauffeured car

Pittsburgh, and the tunnel's view

Pittsburgh is the American city that surprises Vaughan families most: the Fort Pitt Tunnel through Mount Washington ends in a bridge over the Monongahela with the Golden Triangle's skyline, the three rivers and the Point's fountain filling the windshield at once — the best entrance to any city on this site — and what follows is a city of hills, bridges (more than any city in the world, the locals say), two funiculars climbing to Mount Washington's overlooks, a museum district in Oakland that Andrew Carnegie built with the country's finest dinosaur hall, the Andy Warhol Museum on the North Shore beside PNC Park, whose view of the skyline across the Allegheny makes it the ballpark the polls rank first, and a food culture built on the Strip District's Saturday market and Primanti's sandwiches with the fries inside. Ninety minutes south in the Laurel Highlands is Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's house over a waterfall, the architecture day. The Visit Pittsburgh site has the city; the border guide has the Peace Bridge.

The road

From Woodbridge the 407, the QEW, the Peace Bridge, I-190 and I-90 west along the lake to Erie, then I-79 south for two hours through the Pennsylvania hills — past Grove City's outlets at exit 113 — to Pittsburgh's northern suburbs and I-279 into the city, or the Parkway West and the Fort Pitt Tunnel for the view; six and a half hours by the estimate and six and three-quarters with the booth and an Erie stop. The Sprinter carries a family of five or a group of eight; the SUV a family of four; Erie's Presque Isle is the summer stop on the way.

The inclines and Mount Washington

The Duquesne Incline of 1877 and the Monongahela Incline of 1870 are wooden cable cars that climb Mount Washington's face from the river to Grandview Avenue — the Duquesne's upper station has the museum and the overlook the postcards are taken from, the Monongahela's lands at Station Square's restaurants — and a family's first evening is the Duquesne up at dusk, the skyline lit across the rivers, dinner on Grandview Avenue and the Monongahela down. The Duquesne Incline's site has the hours; it runs late and costs a few dollars, and the Sprinter meets the family at the bottom.

The Strip District's Saturday

The Strip along Penn Avenue between 16th and 22nd Streets is the city's market district — Wholey's fish market, the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company's Italian grocery, the Enrico Biscotti Company, La Prima's espresso, the Steelers merchandise stalls on the sidewalk, the Polish pierogi, the Greek bakery, the Saturday crowds — and a Vaughan family's Saturday morning from nine to noon with the Sprinter's cooler for the Penn Mac cheese; Primanti Bros. on 18th Street is the original of the sandwich with the fries and coleslaw inside, and the Strip's lunch. Vaughan's Italian families feel at home in Penn Mac's cheese line.

Oakland: the Carnegie museums

Andrew Carnegie's museums on Forbes Avenue in Oakland — the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, whose Dinosaurs in Their Time hall holds the country's finest collection of real fossil skeletons (the T. rex holotype, the Diplodocus Carnegie shipped casts of to the world's capitals), and the Carnegie Museum of Art beside it, under one roof and one ticket — are the family's Sunday morning; Phipps Conservatory's glasshouses in Schenley Park across the road, the Cathedral of Learning's Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Carnegie Library are the district's other hours. The museums' site has the hours and the Sprinter drops at the Forbes Avenue door.

The North Shore: the Warhol, the Science Center and PNC Park

Across the Allegheny from downtown, the North Shore holds the Andy Warhol Museum — seven floors of the Pittsburgh-born artist's work, the Silver Clouds room the children walk through, the time capsules — the Carnegie Science Center with its submarine, its planetarium and the SportsWorks hall the children run in, the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh for the under-tens, PNC Park for the Pirates with the skyline across the river behind the outfield, and Acrisure Stadium for the Steelers; the Roberto Clemente Bridge is closed to cars on game days and the family walks it from downtown. The teams' sites have the tickets; the Penguins play at PPG Paints Arena on the downtown's eastern edge.

Fallingwater and the Laurel Highlands

Ninety minutes southeast in the Laurel Highlands, Fallingwater is Frank Lloyd Wright's 1937 house cantilevered over Bear Run's waterfall for the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh's department store — the most famous private house in America, a guided tour of an hour booked weeks ahead on the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy's site, with Kentuck Knob, Wright's other house, twenty minutes away and Ohiopyle State Park's rafting and the Great Allegheny Passage's bicycle trail around them. A Vaughan family's architecture day is the Sprinter at eight, Fallingwater's ten o'clock tour, Ohiopyle's falls for lunch, Kentuck Knob at two, and the city by five.

The weekend, in shape

Friday at 9 from Woodbridge, the Peace Bridge at 10:40, Erie at 1:15 for lunch, I-79, the Fort Pitt Tunnel at 3:45 for the view, the downtown hotel by four, the Duquesne Incline at dusk and Grandview Avenue's dinner; Saturday the Strip at nine, Primanti's, the Warhol at one, the Science Center for the children, the Pirates at 6:35 from the Clemente Bridge; Sunday the Carnegie museums at ten, Phipps, the Sprinter at two, Grove City's outlets for an hour on the way if the family wants, Erie at five, the Peace Bridge at 7:30 with the 48-hour exemption, Woodbridge by 9:15. Two nights, the Sprinter as a return with a Saturday on daily hire, one number in the booking engine; three nights with the Fallingwater day added, and the travel desk holding the hotel.

What the chauffeur replaces

Six and a half hours each way through the Pennsylvania hills as a driver; the Peace Bridge; I-79's two hours in the dark; the city's hills, tunnels and bridges, which the chauffeur has driven and a visitor's GPS has not; the Oakland and North Shore garages on a game day; and the Sunday drive home. Pittsburgh is a short flight from Pearson and a couple flies; a family of five or a group of eight for a Steelers Sunday drives in the Sprinter for one fare with the tunnel's view included.

Seasons

April to September for the Pirates and PNC Park's view; autumn for the Steelers and the Laurel Highlands' colour on the Fallingwater day; winter for the Penguins and the inclines in the snow; the Three Rivers Arts Festival in June and the Regatta on the rivers in August; the Strip's Saturdays every week of the year.

Pairing it

Pittsburgh pairs with Grove City's outlets an hour north for the parent who shops, with Erie and Presque Isle on the road for the summer beach hour, with Cleveland two hours northwest for a two-city weekend of the Rock Hall and the Warhol, and with Gettysburg three hours east for a family continuing to Washington.

The Fallingwater day, in order

From the downtown hotel at 7:45 in the Sprinter: the Parkway East, the Turnpike to Donegal and Route 381 south through the Laurel Highlands' farms, Fallingwater's visitor centre at 9:30 for the ten o'clock tour — the walk down to the house, the living room over the stream with the hatch to the water, the terraces, the guest house, the view from the classic overlook downstream — until 11:30; Ohiopyle's village at noon for lunch by the Youghiogheny's falls and the Ferncliff Peninsula walk; Kentuck Knob at 2 for the hexagonal house on the hill and the sculpture meadow; Route 40 west and the Turnpike, the city by 5:15 and the Monongahela Incline at dusk. A daily-hire day inside the weekend, booked with the tours on the Conservancy's site six weeks ahead in summer and the autumn.

Kennywood and the Zoo, for the younger children

Kennywood, the 1898 amusement park on the Monongahela's bluff at West Mifflin — the Thunderbolt and the Jack Rabbit wooden coasters, the Racer, the Phantom's Revenge, the Kiddieland and the Potato Patch fries — is the family's day when the children are under twelve and the museums have been done, and the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium in Highland Park with its polar bears and its aquarium is the other; the Kennywood site has the season, and the Sprinter's daily-hire day does both with the Strip's lunch between.

Costs, plainly

The Pittsburgh weekend is a return with a Saturday on daily hire in the booking engine, or three nights with the Fallingwater day added; the hotel, the museums' tickets, the game and Fallingwater's tour are the family's own, and the 48-hour exemption covers the Strip's cheese and the Steelers' jerseys. Against the fare are six and a half hours each way as a driver, the Peace Bridge, I-79's hills in the dark, the city's tunnels and bridges and the game-day garages; a couple flies from Pearson, and a family of five or a group of eight books the Sprinter for one fare with the Fort Pitt Tunnel's view included.

Mister Rogers, and the children's Pittsburgh

Fred Rogers made his programme in Pittsburgh's public television studios for thirty-three years, and the city keeps him: the Heinz History Center's Mister Rogers' Neighborhood exhibit with the original set pieces and King Friday's castle, the statue on the North Shore by the stadium, the Fred Rogers Productions' Daniel Tiger at the Children's Museum, and the Idlewild park's Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood ride an hour east on the Fallingwater road; a Vaughan family with children under eight does the History Center's morning — the Heinz ketchup gallery is the same building — and the center's site has the exhibit's hours.

Booking it

Book a return from your Vaughan address with a Saturday on daily hire, or a daily hire for the weekend with the Fallingwater day; tell us the game, the tours' times, the hotel, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Pittsburgh weekend