Side Trips

In less than an hour, you can drive north from Philadelphia to tranquil Bucks County or southwest to the green and beautiful Brandywine River Valley and find enchanting farms, classic stone farmhouses, antiques galleries, and art museums. The same boats that brought Penn's Quakers to Pennsylvania also brought the pioneers that fanned out into the Delaware Valley to the south, Bucks County to the north, and what is now Pennsylvania Dutch Country to the west. 

Many of these areas remain lush and unspoiled, although, of course, development has encroached where land preservationists have not been able to save open space. The major attractions of the Bucks and Brandywine countryside are historical and cultural: Colonial mansions, early American factories, incredible gardens and museums, and Revolutionary War battlegrounds. Both areas are known for inspiring renowned painters, also. Along with the New Hope School of Impressionist Art, the Brandywine is and was home to three generations of Wyeths, the late N. C. and Andrew as well as Jamie.