Step Lively In The City Strolling Puts The Cityscape Into Human Perspective. Here Are Five Walks To Help You Get To Know Philadelphia.

Weekday mornings I walk to nowhere on a treadmill at the Y. Healthy but boring. So when real-life walks appear, I run. Well, walk.

Walking magazine recently listed Philadelphia as the nation's No. 10 destination for walking. They're wrong. We must be at least No. 3, if not No. 1.

First of all, we have Fairmount Park, thought to be the largest municipal park on the planet. Even if you admit that dozens of smaller parks come under the jurisdiction of the Fairmount Park Commission, Philadelphia boasts 8,900 acres of green space. (Walking magazine ranks Portland, Ore., No. 9, noting it has one of the largest parks in the world; but its Forest Park and Washington Park combined have only 5,200 acres).

So where to walk when not at the Y?

My 24 pounds of Philadelphia guidebooks includes the WPA Guide to Philadelphia, compiled by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration in 1937 and reissued by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission 51 years later. A gem.

There are other obvious walks that anyone with a map can find. In the Wissahickon, go to the Valley Green Inn and stroll along Forbidden Drive, the 5 1/2-mile unpaved road that borders Wissahickon Creek. Walk under airplanes at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, taking binoculars to watch the birds - both herons and 747s - that frequent the area. Or explore the river drives, with history dating back to the mid-1800s, eight miles from the Art Museum to the Falls Bridge and back.

My books - supplemented by Bob Thomas, a Center City architect who volunteers to lead tours with several organizations - yielded the five urban walks that follow. I invited my husband and friends to join me. Grab a buddy, your Reeboks and a water bottle, and explore your city.

1. Main Street and More. Sam and Melba Matthews, Chester County dairy farmers, have driven through Montana and Maine but never explored Manayunk. So they brought their kids - Jane, 16, and Tom, 14 - to walk with me along Main Street and the Schuylkill. We started at the eastern end of Main Street, parking opposite the new United Artists multiplex, for what I expected to be a straight shot - as straight as Main Street goes - to the Green Lane Bridge.