Pennsylvania’s areas of greatest attraction for visitors include Philadelphia—a rival of Boston in its historic richness—Gettysburg, various resorts scattered in the chains of rounded mountains in a southwesterly direction across most of the state, and the Pennsylvania Dutch country centered in Lancaster.
In Philadelphia you'll want to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, Congress Hall, the U.S. Mint, Christ Church, the Old Customs House, the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Carpenters Hall, the Bonaparte House, Franklin Institute and Fels Planetarium. An interesting excursion is the trip to Valley Forge, which takes about four hours, going, coming and seeing. In Philadelphia's many fine restaurants try some of the local specialties: scrapple, pepper-pot soup, smoked hams and sausage from Lancaster, and the delicious local ice cream.
Lancaster, about fifty-five miles to the west, is the heart of the rich, carefully tended farm country of the Amish sect—the "plain people" who wear simple black clothing, drive to market by horse-and-buggy, and per-form some interesting gyrations with the English language. One of the few worldly pleasures they allow themselves is festive dining; as a result this is one of the most interesting gastronomic sections of the country. Specialties include some dishes with names most people never heard of, among them hopple-popple, seven sweets and seven sours, snits and knepp, schmierkaese, shoo-fly pie and apple pandowdy. If you're a pretzel aficionado, you'll find that some of the best are made in the city of Reading.
Speaking of eating, the chocolate town of Hershey is about twenty-five miles to the northwest of Lancaster. There are tours of the chocolate plant, a handsome rose garden, a Pennsylvania Dutch and Indian museum, and an excellent resort hotel, the Hershey Inn, just outside town.
If you continued straight west out of Lancaster along the Lincoln Highway (U.S. 30), you'd come to Gettysburg, just about fifty miles away. The historic attraction of the battlegrounds has been heightened in recent years by the establishment of President Eisenhower's farm on the edge of the National Military Park. Pittsburgh is certainly worth a visit. In addition to its cultural attractions, including the 42-story Cathedral of Learning of the University of Pittsburgh, it represents a truly thrilling renaissance of what had been a dirty, unattractive city—accomplished by civic cooperation centered in a splendidly effective program for elimination of air pollution.
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