Summer, in the city and Shore | Scene Through the Lens

On this Memorial Day Weekend and the unofficial start of the summer travel season, Philadelphia will be getting lots of visitors. (The city was just voted “Most Walkable City in the U.S.” in a USA TODAY Readers’ Choice Awards contest).

The best place to start for anyone traveling here is the Independence Visitor Center. I stop in all the time, often pausing at the open-walled theater (pictured above) to re-watch the free, eight-minute movie that runs all day on a continuous loop, previewing the city’s sights and sounds.

The center also has the cleanest public restrooms in the entire city.

Speaking of restrooms and travel, for many of us in the region, all summer roads lead to the Jersey Shore.

» READ MORE: A photo appreciation of Garden State rest stops

I spent a couple of days driving not just to the rest areas, but to Shore towns from Atlantic City to Cape May, taking many of the photos for our summer guide. You can find links to most of the stories in our Down the Shore newsletter, the summer’s first. Sign up here to receive it emailed to you every week all summer for free.

I even went back this Memorial Day weekend:

Since 1998, a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column