Pennsylvania: Lancaster Valley Amish Country Tour
General description: This 73.5-mile drive traces a serpentine path through the Lancaster Amish Country, avoiding for the most part the highly promoted tourist routes. Narrow town streets make parts of the drive unsuitable for RVs. Location: Southeast Pennsylvania.
Drive route numbers: Pennsylvania Highways 23, 897, 340, 772, and 441; U.S. Highway 30.
Travel season: Year-round.
Special attractions: Amish country images; Ephrata Cloister; Landis Valley Museum; historic Lititz and Lancaster; James Buchanan's Wheatland; Mascot Roller Mills and the Ressler Family House; walking tours, museums, shopping, Pennsylvania Dutch dining, and Amish buggy and hot-air balloon rides.
Camping: Private campgrounds serve the Lancaster Amish Country traveler. A public campground, French Creek State Park (off PA 345, 10 miles northeast of Morgantown) has 201 modern family campsites and also rents cabins. Its facilities include flush toilets, showers, and dump station. Services: Morgantown, Intercourse, Leola, and Lancaster are full-service communities; many traveler amenities and services are available at other stops along the route.
Nearby attractions: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, French Creek State Park, Nolde Forest Environmental Education Center, historic Columbia, the lower Susquehanna River/Lake Aldred, historic Rock Ford and the North Museum of Natural History and Science (Lancaster), Robert Fulton Birthplace (Quarryville), Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and historic Strasburg Railroad (Strasburg), Hershey Museum and Gardens.
Description The drive: This drive starts in Morgantown and snakes its way south and west across the verdant Lancaster Valley, passing through Amish villages and historic towns before ending at Lancaster. The Lancaster County Amish settlement is the oldest in the United States. Their presence and various sites along the tour emphasize the significance of one of this country's founding tenets -- "freedom of religion." On this drive, you will share the road with the clip-clop of horse hooves and whir of buggy wheels. Views span an engaging farm tapestry of classic white farmhouses, massive Pennsylvania bank barns, silos, livestock, and corncribs. Farm stands, roadside tables, and wheelbarrows loaded with seasonal produce put forth tasty invitations to interrupt the drive.
While the quiet, centuries-old lifestyle of the Amish and Mennonite peoples intrigue, do not allow your curiosity to become intrusive. Avoid staring and put your cameras aside when the "plain people" pass. As the Amish conduct no commerce on their Sabbath, forgo calling on their home trades on Sunday.
At the junction of PA 23 and PA 10 North (the Penna Turnpike access) in Morgantown, go west on PA 23 (Main Street) through the small community to enter the rolling farm country. Traffic is generally moderate. On the right at 1.4 miles is the Amish-Mennonite Information Center, with brochures, information, and maps. On its grounds, find a picnic table with a fine countryside view.
Hand-lettered signs for wood crafts, quilts, and baked goods may entice you onto the side roads, where some of the best discoveries can be made. The possibilities include seeing a work team bring in a corn crop, children in straw hats and aprons playing outside their one-room schoolhouse, a farmer pedaling a scooter between fields, or a barefoot Amish toddler daydreaming beside a fence. The primary tour proceeds forward through the pretty village of Churchtown, only to return to country landscapes that stretch north and south. Tranquil images and rural smells bombard senses.
The tidy farm community of Goodville next marks off distance. At 7.7 miles, turn south on PA 897 for quieter travel, passing a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant. Watch junction signs to remain on PA 897 South. Beyond the Cedar Grove Presbyterian Church and graveyard, the drive ascends from farm country into a mixed hardwood forest with mountain laurel.
Where the route next descends, drive past a Mennonite Church, Mount Airy Cemetery, and peach and apple orchards. As the tour drifts back into open farm country, you will pass a blacksmith shop -- a vital addition to the rustic agricultural community. Still follow the weaving route of PA 897S.
At 16.9 miles, turn left on PA 340, one of the more highly promoted and commercial Amish tour routes, and in another 0.5 mile, turn right to continue south on PA 897. Ahead stretches more of the unhurried, zigzagging travel past scenes of farm life, which help unravel the mystique of the plain people. During harvest season, the families are particularly busy in fields and gardens.
At 21 miles, bypass Salisbury Township Park, where picnic tables are available. The park abuts the tour all the way south to US 30, another of the popular tourism routes. Turn right on US 30 to enter Gap and reach the next travel leg, PA 772 West. As you pass through Gap, you may notice Auntie Anne's Hand-rolled Soft Pretzel Training Center -- pretzels are a sure-fire sign that you are in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
Track PA 772 west, again sharing the road with buggies, bicycles, and scooters; drive carefully. In places, the pavement may show the telltale scratches of buggy wheels. Across the folded terrain, beltways of corn alternate with other crops. Beautiful old fieldstone and frame farmhouses contribute to the postcard images. A few of the barns have open slats for drying tobacco.
At 27.5 miles, enter Intercourse (the unofficial capital of Pennsylvania Dutch Country) to again tag PA 340. Between the villages of Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand (west on PA 340), shoppers find a myriad of outlets selling Amish goods and original Pennsylvania Dutch food, as well as tours, museums, and accommodations.
For this drive, continue west, following the country highway of PA 772, passing more family-run cottage enterprises. Some cater to the Amish alone, with harness repairs, buggy sales, and boots. At the Saturday garage sales, it is not uncommon to see a cluster of parked black buggies; the frugal, industrious Amish frown on waste and make good use of the bargains.
At 31.1 miles, the drive crosses the broad, pollen-coated waters of Mill Creek just below a small dam. To the left are the Mascot Roller Mills and Ressler Family House. Along Mill Creek to the right is Mascot Community Park, with picnic tables and a small memorial bird sanctuary where egret and blue heron may be spied. May through October, the roller mill and Ressler house are shown by guided tour: Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This stone mill was built in 1760 and served the Amish agricultural community until 1977; it is preserved intact and fully operable and serves as a living record of the flour milling industry. It began with millstones and water wheels and then modernized to water-powered turbines and chilled iron rolls. The Ressler family acquired the mill in 1864 and through their generosity, the mill and their family home of 12 decades have been opened to the public. The home is untouched, with original pieces all in place, conveying the wholesomeness of country life and one family's history.
At 33.6 miles, you will cross over PA 23 at Leola, following signs for PA 772W. Keep to PA 772 until its junction with PA 272, where you have the option of adding a side trip to Ephrata Cloister in 4.3 miles (go north on PA 272 and then right on Main Street in Ephrata) or to Landis Valley Museum in 4.6 miles (go south on PA 272 and then right on Kissell Hill Road). The primary drive remains on PA 772. At Ephrata Cloister, visitors enter the medieval-style village of an austere, eighteenth-century religious communal society. Ten of the original buildings are restored and interpreted to introduce the disciplined lifestyle of the society. The Cloister was founded in 1732 by separatists from the Dunkard Church and is now a National Historic Landmark. It is open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.; admission is charged.
At its height, the Cloister consisted of 300 members. The white-robed, celibate brothers and sisters left behind a legacy of art, music, poetry, decorated calligraphy, and publishing. Married householders contributed to the community and practiced the rigid faith of purification. During the American Revolution, wounded soldiers from the Battle of Brandywine were cared for by Cloister members. After the 1768 death of Cloister founder, Conrad Biessel, however, the society began to drift from its stern purpose and essentially vanished after 1814.
At the Cloister, you will view a slide program, take a guided building tour, and then walk the tranquil grounds for a self-guided tour of the community. The small, harsh sleep cells and low doorways of humility help introduce the life and the people.
Landis Valley Museum, on the other hand, is an agricultural hamlet of historic stone and frame buildings that introduces the lifestyles and traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania Germans. "Dutch" is an Americanization of "Deutsch," which means German, and "Pennsylvania Dutch" is an all-encompassing term for the peoples of germanic origin who settled in this region in the eighteenth century. By the 1790s, they made up 40 percent of the population of southeast Pennsylvania.
Occupying a rural setting, this living history museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.; an admission is charged. May through October, visitors may tour all of the buildings, talk with on-site interpreters, and view a full schedule of ongoing craft demonstrations where artists use traditional materials and techniques. November through April, a one-hour escorted tour fills in the history before you roam the village streets. Historic breeds of livestock and heirloom gardens further capture the time frame.
Nostrils flare at the intermingled aromas of straw, earth, livestock, and slow-burning wood. At the walking tour stops, you will learn how the Pennsylvania Dutch viewed luxury and responsibility and what was considered an individual's role within the family and the community. The germanic heritage was carried on in the language, traditions, art, and architecture. Although farming was the mainstay for much of the community, the Pennsylvania Dutch also labored at clock making, leatherworking, tinsmithing, shopkeeping, and weaving.
George and Henry Landis, founders of the museum, came from a Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and saw the need to preserve the culture's qualities. Their collection of Pennsylvania Dutch articles from the 1700s and 1800s numbered well over 75,000 objects when the Commonwealth acquired the museum in 1953, and the collection has since grown.
For the valley drive alone, proceed west on PA 772 from its junction with PA 272, heading toward Lititz. Beyond the busy intersection, rural images and meandering travel return, but now with moderate traffic. Rothsville presents a pleasant sidewalk community with Federal-style homes and a classic church. By 43 miles, enter Lititz with its many eighteenth-century homes and structures. Lititz, founded in 1756, was once a closed community, centered around the teachings of the Moravian Church. Rigid rules governing personal, business, and societal behavior discouraged outside contact. Lititz derives its name from the town of Lidice in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, where the Moravian Church got its start 300 years earlier. Moravian Church Square still occupies the heart of the community, but the town gates are now wide open and tourists welcomed.
At the eastern edge of Moravian Church Square is the Sisters' House, which later became Linden Hall, the second oldest girls' residence school in the United States. The old Moravian Church of 1763 is now the parsonage.
The town itself is highly walkable, and the narrow streets suggest you park and do just that. Country wreaths adorn many doors, while simple plaques identify the year a structure was built. Throughout the historic village, discover stone, frame, log, and brick buildings dating to the 1700s. Many now house professional offices, service industries, and attractive shops.
From Lititz, the drive resumes west on PA 772, returning to a canvas of broad fields, silos, barns, dairy cows, and alcoves of trees. Next, pass through the narrow streets of Manheim, with its tidy, side-by-side older homes closely fronting the street. The town was founded in 1762, with glass-blowing an important early industry. Still follow signs for PA 772 West.
General description: This 73.5-mile drive traces a serpentine path through the Lancaster Amish Country, avoiding for the most part the highly promoted tourist routes. Narrow town streets make parts of the drive unsuitable for RVs. Location: Southeast Pennsylvania.
Drive route numbers: Pennsylvania Highways 23, 897, 340, 772, and 441; U.S. Highway 30.
Travel season: Year-round.
Special attractions: Amish country images; Ephrata Cloister; Landis Valley Museum; historic Lititz and Lancaster; James Buchanan's Wheatland; Mascot Roller Mills and the Ressler Family House; walking tours, museums, shopping, Pennsylvania Dutch dining, and Amish buggy and hot-air balloon rides.
Camping: Private campgrounds serve the Lancaster Amish Country traveler. A public campground, French Creek State Park (off PA 345, 10 miles northeast of Morgantown) has 201 modern family campsites and also rents cabins. Its facilities include flush toilets, showers, and dump station. Services: Morgantown, Intercourse, Leola, and Lancaster are full-service communities; many traveler amenities and services are available at other stops along the route.
Nearby attractions: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, French Creek State Park, Nolde Forest Environmental Education Center, historic Columbia, the lower Susquehanna River/Lake Aldred, historic Rock Ford and the North Museum of Natural History and Science (Lancaster), Robert Fulton Birthplace (Quarryville), Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and historic Strasburg Railroad (Strasburg), Hershey Museum and Gardens.
While the quiet, centuries-old lifestyle of the Amish and Mennonite peoples intrigue, do not allow your curiosity to become intrusive. Avoid staring and put your cameras aside when the "plain people" pass. As the Amish conduct no commerce on their Sabbath, forgo calling on their home trades on Sunday.
At the junction of PA 23 and PA 10 North (the Penna Turnpike access) in Morgantown, go west on PA 23 (Main Street) through the small community to enter the rolling farm country. Traffic is generally moderate. On the right at 1.4 miles is the Amish-Mennonite Information Center, with brochures, information, and maps. On its grounds, find a picnic table with a fine countryside view.
Hand-lettered signs for wood crafts, quilts, and baked goods may entice you onto the side roads, where some of the best discoveries can be made. The possibilities include seeing a work team bring in a corn crop, children in straw hats and aprons playing outside their one-room schoolhouse, a farmer pedaling a scooter between fields, or a barefoot Amish toddler daydreaming beside a fence. The primary tour proceeds forward through the pretty village of Churchtown, only to return to country landscapes that stretch north and south. Tranquil images and rural smells bombard senses.
The tidy farm community of Goodville next marks off distance. At 7.7 miles, turn south on PA 897 for quieter travel, passing a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant. Watch junction signs to remain on PA 897 South. Beyond the Cedar Grove Presbyterian Church and graveyard, the drive ascends from farm country into a mixed hardwood forest with mountain laurel.
Where the route next descends, drive past a Mennonite Church, Mount Airy Cemetery, and peach and apple orchards. As the tour drifts back into open farm country, you will pass a blacksmith shop -- a vital addition to the rustic agricultural community. Still follow the weaving route of PA 897S.
At 16.9 miles, turn left on PA 340, one of the more highly promoted and commercial Amish tour routes, and in another 0.5 mile, turn right to continue south on PA 897. Ahead stretches more of the unhurried, zigzagging travel past scenes of farm life, which help unravel the mystique of the plain people. During harvest season, the families are particularly busy in fields and gardens.
At 21 miles, bypass Salisbury Township Park, where picnic tables are available. The park abuts the tour all the way south to US 30, another of the popular tourism routes. Turn right on US 30 to enter Gap and reach the next travel leg, PA 772 West. As you pass through Gap, you may notice Auntie Anne's Hand-rolled Soft Pretzel Training Center -- pretzels are a sure-fire sign that you are in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
Track PA 772 west, again sharing the road with buggies, bicycles, and scooters; drive carefully. In places, the pavement may show the telltale scratches of buggy wheels. Across the folded terrain, beltways of corn alternate with other crops. Beautiful old fieldstone and frame farmhouses contribute to the postcard images. A few of the barns have open slats for drying tobacco.
At 27.5 miles, enter Intercourse (the unofficial capital of Pennsylvania Dutch Country) to again tag PA 340. Between the villages of Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand (west on PA 340), shoppers find a myriad of outlets selling Amish goods and original Pennsylvania Dutch food, as well as tours, museums, and accommodations.
For this drive, continue west, following the country highway of PA 772, passing more family-run cottage enterprises. Some cater to the Amish alone, with harness repairs, buggy sales, and boots. At the Saturday garage sales, it is not uncommon to see a cluster of parked black buggies; the frugal, industrious Amish frown on waste and make good use of the bargains.
At 31.1 miles, the drive crosses the broad, pollen-coated waters of Mill Creek just below a small dam. To the left are the Mascot Roller Mills and Ressler Family House. Along Mill Creek to the right is Mascot Community Park, with picnic tables and a small memorial bird sanctuary where egret and blue heron may be spied. May through October, the roller mill and Ressler house are shown by guided tour: Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This stone mill was built in 1760 and served the Amish agricultural community until 1977; it is preserved intact and fully operable and serves as a living record of the flour milling industry. It began with millstones and water wheels and then modernized to water-powered turbines and chilled iron rolls. The Ressler family acquired the mill in 1864 and through their generosity, the mill and their family home of 12 decades have been opened to the public. The home is untouched, with original pieces all in place, conveying the wholesomeness of country life and one family's history.
At 33.6 miles, you will cross over PA 23 at Leola, following signs for PA 772W. Keep to PA 772 until its junction with PA 272, where you have the option of adding a side trip to Ephrata Cloister in 4.3 miles (go north on PA 272 and then right on Main Street in Ephrata) or to Landis Valley Museum in 4.6 miles (go south on PA 272 and then right on Kissell Hill Road). The primary drive remains on PA 772. At Ephrata Cloister, visitors enter the medieval-style village of an austere, eighteenth-century religious communal society. Ten of the original buildings are restored and interpreted to introduce the disciplined lifestyle of the society. The Cloister was founded in 1732 by separatists from the Dunkard Church and is now a National Historic Landmark. It is open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.; admission is charged.
At its height, the Cloister consisted of 300 members. The white-robed, celibate brothers and sisters left behind a legacy of art, music, poetry, decorated calligraphy, and publishing. Married householders contributed to the community and practiced the rigid faith of purification. During the American Revolution, wounded soldiers from the Battle of Brandywine were cared for by Cloister members. After the 1768 death of Cloister founder, Conrad Biessel, however, the society began to drift from its stern purpose and essentially vanished after 1814.
At the Cloister, you will view a slide program, take a guided building tour, and then walk the tranquil grounds for a self-guided tour of the community. The small, harsh sleep cells and low doorways of humility help introduce the life and the people.
Landis Valley Museum, on the other hand, is an agricultural hamlet of historic stone and frame buildings that introduces the lifestyles and traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania Germans. "Dutch" is an Americanization of "Deutsch," which means German, and "Pennsylvania Dutch" is an all-encompassing term for the peoples of germanic origin who settled in this region in the eighteenth century. By the 1790s, they made up 40 percent of the population of southeast Pennsylvania.
Occupying a rural setting, this living history museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.; an admission is charged. May through October, visitors may tour all of the buildings, talk with on-site interpreters, and view a full schedule of ongoing craft demonstrations where artists use traditional materials and techniques. November through April, a one-hour escorted tour fills in the history before you roam the village streets. Historic breeds of livestock and heirloom gardens further capture the time frame.
Nostrils flare at the intermingled aromas of straw, earth, livestock, and slow-burning wood. At the walking tour stops, you will learn how the Pennsylvania Dutch viewed luxury and responsibility and what was considered an individual's role within the family and the community. The germanic heritage was carried on in the language, traditions, art, and architecture. Although farming was the mainstay for much of the community, the Pennsylvania Dutch also labored at clock making, leatherworking, tinsmithing, shopkeeping, and weaving.
George and Henry Landis, founders of the museum, came from a Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and saw the need to preserve the culture's qualities. Their collection of Pennsylvania Dutch articles from the 1700s and 1800s numbered well over 75,000 objects when the Commonwealth acquired the museum in 1953, and the collection has since grown.
For the valley drive alone, proceed west on PA 772 from its junction with PA 272, heading toward Lititz. Beyond the busy intersection, rural images and meandering travel return, but now with moderate traffic. Rothsville presents a pleasant sidewalk community with Federal-style homes and a classic church. By 43 miles, enter Lititz with its many eighteenth-century homes and structures. Lititz, founded in 1756, was once a closed community, centered around the teachings of the Moravian Church. Rigid rules governing personal, business, and societal behavior discouraged outside contact. Lititz derives its name from the town of Lidice in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, where the Moravian Church got its start 300 years earlier. Moravian Church Square still occupies the heart of the community, but the town gates are now wide open and tourists welcomed.
At the eastern edge of Moravian Church Square is the Sisters' House, which later became Linden Hall, the second oldest girls' residence school in the United States. The old Moravian Church of 1763 is now the parsonage.
The town itself is highly walkable, and the narrow streets suggest you park and do just that. Country wreaths adorn many doors, while simple plaques identify the year a structure was built. Throughout the historic village, discover stone, frame, log, and brick buildings dating to the 1700s. Many now house professional offices, service industries, and attractive shops.
From Lititz, the drive resumes west on PA 772, returning to a canvas of broad fields, silos, barns, dairy cows, and alcoves of trees. Next, pass through the narrow streets of Manheim, with its tidy, side-by-side older homes closely fronting the street. The town was founded in 1762, with glass-blowing an important early industry. Still follow signs for PA 772 West.