Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh's geography announces itself at Point State Park, sited at the exact confluence where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio — the defining image of the city, marked by a 150-foot fountain that typically runs only in the warmer months. That three-rivers view is best seen from above, aboard the Duquesne Incline, an 1877 cable funicular climbing Mount Washington that survives as one of only two inclines left from the more than a dozen the city once operated; now a National Historic Landmark, it still carries daily commuters and visitors to an observation deck overlooking downtown. Pittsburgh's museum culture carries its own weight: in the Oakland neighborhood, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh combine the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, home to one of the world's great dinosaur halls, and the Carnegie Museum of Art under a single admission — a legacy of Andrew Carnegie's own fortune and philanthropy. Immediately nearby, the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning rises 42 stories as a Late Gothic Revival landmark, the second-tallest university building in the world, its 31 Nationality Rooms open on their own, more limited schedule inside an otherwise free, still-active academic building. Downtown, the Andy Warhol Museum offers a genuinely distinct cultural anchor: the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist, honoring the Pittsburgh-born Warhol across seven floors.