Culture

Get your hands dirty this spring; it’s mud sale season in Lancaster County and that means bargain goods, rare quilts, and authentic Amish hand-crafts are all only a bid away. If you haven’t been to these auction events, you’ve been overlooking one of the most exciting and unique traditions of Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

The Cumberland Valley has become a mecca for auto enthusiasts from all over the world.  Carlisle Events has been a staple in the automotive community for over four decades offering car enthusiasts a series of events to find automotive parts, memorabilia and collector vehicles. The annual collector car, truck and motorcycle events are held at the 150-acre Carlisle Fairgrounds and play host to thousands of collector and classic automotive enthusiasts to buy, sell and celebrate all things automotive.

Since 1966, the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts has grown to a five-day celebration of all things art: ceramics, paper, metal, photography, blown glass, painting, and more. Celebrating its 51st year, the Festival of the Arts will be held Thursday, July 13 through Sunday July 16, 2017 on the streets of downtown State College and is known as one of the nation's best juried fine art and craft show. The award winning Sidewalk Sale and Exhibition will open on Thursday from 10:00am to 8:00pm through Saturday and Noon to 5:00pm on Sunday.

 Finally, winter has taken its last few breaths and there isn’t a better way to celebrate the coming of spring than at the Philadelphia Flower Show this March. From March 11-19, the region’s best horticulturists and floral designers will be showcasing their beautiful landscapes, designs, and gardening skills at the Philadelphia Convention Center. This year’s theme, Holland: Flowering the World, is a celebration of the heritage, eco-design, and sustainability of the Netherlands through recreations of its iconic windmills, canals, bridges, and tulips.

"I think that if ever a mortal heard the word of God 

it would be in a garden at the cool of the day."
- F. Frankfort Moore

Visit the Brandywine Creek Valley this season for the famous Longwood Garden Christmas display, a festive demonstration of lights, music, and holiday cheer. As one of the premier displays of outdoor and indoor exotic plants in the United States, Longwood Gardens has a dazzling collection of over six thousand seasonal plants illuminated with lights to celebrate Christmas this year until January 8th.

Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary is a world-famous museum and National Historic Landmark that has kept within its walls notorious criminals such as Al Capone. Its wagon wheel design was revolutionary and its methods of reform through solitary confinement made it a pioneer for its time. Built in 1829, Eastern State was so innovative and radical in its technique of solitary imprisonment that it coined the term “the Pennsylvania system,” further adding to the fame of our state.

In Pennsylvania's Amish Country, a sprawling vineyard stretches itself across one of the many hills, blanketed in some of the world's best-tasting grapes. It is here, at Waltz Vineyard, that Pennsylvania produces its largest harvest of grapes. Fertilized by world-class soil and nurtured by the same family for six generations, the land is a true testament to the aspirations and American ideals of local, family-owned business.

The Route 6 Heritage Corridor is a 3,652 mile road from Cape Cod to Long Beach, California. In Pennsylvania, Route 6 stretches 427 miles and Galeton, a small town in Potter County, hosts the Pennsylvania Route 6 Tourist Association, a castle-like information center covered in ivy. Route 6 hosts the famous locations of the world’s first underground mine, first locomotive, and the first of the legendary Great Lakes lighthouses.

Logs and Lumberjacks

To most, Pennsylvania seems to be a tame, serene land of rolling hills, mountains, and deep river valleys. But others understand this landscape for what it is: a rugged, wild forest only survivable in if one has the appropriate skills. For woodsmen, survival means skill, strength, and cunning. These ancient techniques are a lasting part of Potter Country’s traditional lumber heritage and what pushed Pennsylvania to the forefront of the lumber industry around the world.

Home to over 200 wineries, Pennsylvania contributes $2 billion to the economy from its unique wine industry, nurtured by its climate and landscape that makes it a winemaking paradise. The green rolling hills, diverse soil, endless forests, hot summers, and cold winters mimic many of the European landscapes that started the industry. It was what pushed William Penn, the founder and proprietor of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, to plant the first vineyard in 1683.