If you haven't taken the covered bridges tour, do so. It's such a beautiful drive, even when the…read moretrees haven't fully come in yet--the scenery still feels peaceful and worth it. We made a weekend out of it and stayed overnight in Bethlehem, which made the whole experience even better. Highly recommend.

What's that old song lyric? "The best things in life are free". It may not have been quite free,…read morebut for the price of a tank of gas we were able to spend a lovely fall day with our closest friends taking the covered bridge tour in beautiful and historic Bucks County PA.. And that seemed among the "best things" to us. So we wanted to post a heads up to others via Yelp about this tour for others who might enjoy it. There are but twelve covered bridges remaining of the original three dozen originally built in Buck's' County Pennsylvania. Thanks to the hard work of some dedicated folks, the twelve that remain are maintained for all of us to enjoy. This driving (or biking) tour will take you to all of them - or some if you prefer not to do the entire tour. For our two bits, this is a great way to spend a day, including a stop at Bowman's Hill Tower to take in the views and the history of that site (it's on the tour path so you're missing out if you don't stop here) and Bowman' Wildlife Preserve. In particular on a beautiful fall day as we did last week. (Both the Tower and Preserve are in New Hope.) The Wildlife Preserve has a picnic area outside the gates so taking along a picnic lunch is a great idea. And inside the gates, there are bathrooms at the visitor center...hooray. See the website posted at the of the page for more info on each of the bridges and the driving map. Another good bridge tor website is located here. http://letsget.com/html/Directory/community/comm_states/comm_counties_pa/comm_ya_bucks/covered_bri.html#TOUR

Great tour guide. Highly recommend Zephyr. Very knowledgeable and friendly!!! The grounds are…read morelovely and the castle is impressive.

Henry Mercer was an unusual guy. Very smart and very rich. So, he builds himself a 44 room castle…read morein 1912 in concrete (so it would not burn down). And he is not a trained architect or contractor. And then he sets up a tile manufacturing company about 1/4 mile away (you can visit that too), and he makes thousands of unique tiles to adorn the ceilings, walls, and floors of his castle; his new tiles next to historical tiles from all over the world. To visit Fonthill, you must go on a one hour guided tour. Our tour guide, Lisa, was intelligent and entertaining. Our group was 10 (that is maximum for a group). It can get claustrophobic in some of the rooms and there are lots of steps (so be advised). It is really worth visiting Fonthill Castle. It is far from a luxurious mansion, but rather a peculiar yet intriguing concrete castle. Mercer also built another castle about a mile away in Doylestown to store his "stuff" - this is the Mercer Museum (also worth a visit).

A house hidden in a…read more house The Thomas Shinn House was originally built waaaay back in 1712. A very primitive English cabin built of roughly cut logs. Nothing fancy about this place. The cool part is that it was actually hidden and part of another house that was built much later. The Shinn House wasn't discovered until the new and much larger house was demolished in 1967. Of course the Shinn House was bought by the Mt Holly Historical Society and moved from it's original location on Water Street to it's present home on Park Drive, right behind the town hall. Unfortunately the old cabin isn't open to the public and you really can't see in the windows. That's too bad because it must be fascinating inside. However just walking around it and seeing the rough and tiny place is amazing enough. I wonder what it must have been like to raise a family in this tiny and crude home. And why was the newer house just built around the little cabin. I'll probably know but it is an incredible cool and historical house located in a town that is just full of surprises.

An old library book, Gardens of Philadelphia, made me aware of Highlands Mansion, and…read morecoincidentally friends wanted to have a play date at Kids Castle, so on our way home we checked out Highlands. The mansion is apparently under restoration so I did not tour it, but I did see the gardens. While these gardens are nothing compared to the scale of the Brandywine DuPont estates, they are impressive for a former private residence. The most remarkable thing about them, to me, is their use of dramatic tall freestanding walls. Designers seem to agree that the best tool for success in landscaping is creating outdoor "rooms" or dedicated areas with hedged/fenced/walled/etc. boundaries to delineate and discern one outdoor space from another. I've toured many gardens domestic and abroad and I've never seen such a liberal use of wall structures that were apparently built solely for ornamental landscaping purposes (as opposed to ruins or retaining walls). Yes, you see decorative walls employed at Longwood and Chanticleer, but none so gigantic as these. Highlands was working with flat plain meadow and the goal seemed to be to create multiple garden-framed large lawn spaces, free of tree debris or too much shade to affect the grass. The walls are designed to tower as high as ornamental trees, but without the maintenance, root issues, leaf drop, etc. and they green-ify these walls with ivy trained all over them. Voila, vertical garden, architectural interest, height, and allowance for terrain diversification. I grew up adjacent to the trove of magnificent DuPont estates in the Brandywine Valley. I'm now fortunate to live 2 1/2 mi from Chanticleer and 7 1/2mi from Tyler Arboretum (Jenkins is closer but it doesn't appeal to me). I would recommend the destinations closer to me for full day visits, while Highlands gardens would only take a half hour for the formal area, and more if you choose to hike a trail or tour the manse. Still, it may be a half-day visit at most. While not a day trip destination on its own, it is a worthy stop if in the area, and I do recommend it to anyone interested in garden design who's already toured the others I mentioned. This is also an event venue, and the formal space is certainly made for such use, so it's lovely people can enjoy the space as it was intended when conceived.

While the mansion is still undergoing renovations so we were not able to include that and so my…read morereview may change in the future. Don't expect to take even a full afternoon visiting but it is a lovely preserved estate around the city. There's some goats, and the grounds are enjoyable to take an hour or so to walk with nice historical signs for context. There is some parking but it likely gets packed in high traffic times. I can't put it in my top gardens available for Philadelphia, it's good to have treasures like these to keep the sense of history and love of horticulture the area has long held.

It really is such a pretty bridge. And I definitely love looking at the views as much as it will…read moreallow. Very grateful we have this way to pass over! And I'm grateful to the bridge designers and all the crew that helped make this become possible. And thanks to the other nice drivers on the road today and all the maintenance people that made a safe travel day today.

I use this bridge quite often when I go to PA and come back to Jersey... I have used it's sister…read morebridge the Tacony Palmyra bridge also but not as much... This bridge is narrow but I've been across bridges that are worse... If narrow bridges bother you don't use this one... You can reach out and touch the vehicle going the other direction as you pass by... The toll used to be on both sides going out of Jersey and coming into Jersey... That was many years ago...

Bang for your buck: 10/10 Quality: 10/10…read moreService: 10/10 Ambiance/Location: 10/10 Overall: 10/10 The birthplace of America! A great experience! Independence Hall is well maintained and preserved. You do need a ticket, but they are free. The park rangers are so efficient and knowledgeable, they make the whole experience!

The official birth place of America!! How cool that this building is still around and still has…read moreplenty of original items inside. We did a guided tour so that we could see the insides. The tour lasts at most 30 minutes, but they'll give you the background of what all went down inside the building. To think this is where John Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and so many more patriots came to declare the United States of America as an independent nation. I'm so glad I got to see this.

Princeton is a beautiful college town and I could spend days exploring every nook and cranny. Among…read moreone of the hidden gems in Princeton, is venturing the very same steps that Albert Einstein walked. What an incredible experience for me. Despite countless visits back East, I didn't appreciate it as much as I do now that I've gotten older. If I return here after all the COVID restrictions, I hope to spend more time here.

This is a rather special Yelp. Its not for a restaurant or hotel or cafe or salon. Its for a ghost…read moretown. Yep. In New Jersey. In the Pine Barrens. Scared? No need to be. Its a superb day trip--a place unlike any other. You wont find tourists here; or probably any other living soul for miles around. Its just not that well-known enough. Its not an excursion accompanied by a lot of tourist-board support, advertising, or fanfare. There are no audioguides, no pamphlets, no maps. There's also no fees, gates, ticket-stands, trinkets, permits, or clerks. You can just park on the shoulder of the expressway, and mosey right in off the roadside. Its just a tract of deserted woodland. Its a part of New Jersey only a few people ever have reason to explore; its for the imaginative and intrepid. In the course of a year, the site probably only gets a couple photographers, an artist or two, or perhaps an author once in a while. Some 4WD-nuts pass by occasionally. [And this Yelp won't change that--even if I told you about great dining here, this place will always be forlorn and neglected.] Its the location of a vanished Piney town which sprang up in the 1800s around an iron-smelting furnace; and which has now almost completely disappeared from above-ground. Iron? There were iron mines in New Jersey? Not exactly. Its a strange chemical process, organically-occurring, whereby it forms in the swamps and bogs around here. You'll notice all the water is naturally 'tea'-colored. But all the left-behind equipment and abandoned buildings are now, just as if they never were. You might only notice some strange shapes --hummocks, berms--in the terrain and that's about it. This is where your imagination comes to the fore. You're strolling around on top of a village. Chalk one up for NATURE! If it doesn't grab your fancy, then..no matter--just wandering around in the Pine Barrens is in itself, ethereal and stupefying. Take care not to get lost; because the trees have an eerie manner of all looking exactly the same. A few unmindful steps can get you turned around. The Pine Barrens are just a fabulous and unique environment. People love to discredit the Garden State without ever having heard of forests like this. To try to explain: the soil is flat, level, and sandy and without underbrush--covered only with a carpet of pine needles. Thus, with the trees racing up so tall and straight--like columns in a church--and also branching so high; the effect is quite cathedral-like. Sun slants through as if coming through high windows. And its uncannily quiet. Like a big empty room. Just the coolest. Bring boots (its occasionally muddy) and a survival knife *just in case* of feral dogs. I recommend this excursion to all the Yelpers who like to make a fuss over their daring and adventurous, active lifestyles. You're not impressing me with your tour-guide led whitewater rafting adventures. Try exploring the Pine Barrens. .