Exploring the 1,000+ Acre Boyce Park in Plum Borough

Boyce Park, located east of Pittsburgh in the Monroeville/Plum area, is over 1,000 acres full of trails, playgrounds, picnic areas, and a few unexpected gems like ski slopes and a snow tubing area.

We recently did some hiking in the park and enjoyed the beauty of the densely wooded, quiet trails that had some of the best markings out of all of the parks in Allegheny County.

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A Brief Hike on the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel

One of the things we absolutely love about Pittsburgh is that you can pick any direction you want to go, drive 10-15 minutes on a highway, and end up out in the middle of nature.

This lends itself to the incredible opportunity of finding hiking trails and nature preserves, well, just about anywhere.

During our exploration of Fox Chapel, we decided to make a small detour to the Trillium Trail that is featured in the book 60 Hikes in 60 Miles (Pittsburgh Edition). This small nature preserve may not seem like much on the surface, but is one of those unique features you expect to find in a nature-oriented city like this one.

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Exploring Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve in Fox Chapel

Beechwood Farms in Fox Chapel, with its 5 miles of trails and varied habitats, provides a good spot for a short walk or a leisurely picnic.

This nature reserve serves as the headquarters for the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, and as such, there are also many events at this location ranging from naturalist-led hikes and birdwatching events to summer camps and educational opportunities for kids.

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Bayernhof Museum – A Pittsburgh House With Many Secrets

One of the things I love about our goal of visiting every attraction in Pittsburgh is uncovering a hidden gem that most who live in the city may not even know about. The Bayernhof Museum in O'Hara Township certainly fell on that list for us, and after visiting it is now one of the many places in the city we have come to regret not visiting sooner.

The reason for this is because when we first heard about the Bayernhof it was described to us as a house of musical instruments. Okay, we love music, but that wasn't really the greatest of sales pitches that would inspire us to get out the door. In fact, we probably would not have visited at all if it wasn't for our goal of doing everything Pittsburgh has to throw at us.

After visiting, however, we came up with a better way to describe the Bayernhof. It is a gorgeous home-turned-museum housing one of the world's largest collections of self-playing musical instruments, nearly all in working order, that you can actually hear during a visit.

Excited yet? You should be.

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Moraine State Park – A Perfect Day Trip

The 16,725-acre Moraine State Park is one of the largest parks in western Pennsylvania and is located approximately 40 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh.

With land and water activities aplenty, this park is one of the crown jewels in the region and should be on everyone's radar when looking for a great park to visit on a day trip!

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Ephesus Pizza Review – Turkish Food and Pizza in Pittsburgh

Pide from Ephesus Pizza

Note: Some of the Turkish pizzas and specialties mentioned below may no longer be offered at some Ephesus locations. At last check, the downtown Pittsburgh and Aspinwall location still offered some of the menu items discussed below but the Bellevue location did not.

When I first heard of Ephesus Pizza, I clung to the hope that they would actually serve some Turkish food and that the name wasn't just a pizza restaurant trying to sound exotic.

Specifically, I was hoping the restaurant would serve Turkish pide (basically a Turkish pizza), one of our favorite dishes from our travels in Turkey.

As I checked out the menu online I couldn't have been happier. Not only did they have our beloved pide complete with sujuk, a dry-cured meat sort of like pepperoni, but they also had lahmacun (another type of meat-topped flatbread), kebaps, and other gyro-esque wraps.

We just had to visit, and it only took us a few days in between hearing about this place and actually getting there. Since that first visit, we've found many reasons to return time and time again.

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