Amish & Mennonites: Lancaster - Bird-in-Hand - Strasburg - Intercourse

Thursday 10.06. – Lancaster – Philadelphia

Breakfast at the hotel again, which wasn't bad at all. We hit the road around 10:00 am and drive back to Lancaster. The weather is nice again, around 75°F (24°C), we find a free parking meter and walk to Penn Square, where a monument for the fallen of all wars stands.

There is a nice Amish Museum on the top floor of the Tourist Office, and there we also find traces of the German language. Also on furniture, which are called "Schrank" here and probably completely incomprehensible to Americans. However, the Amish actually speak Pennsylvania Dutch, a derivation of the word Deutsch, although Dutch today actually means "Dutch". But that is not relevant in this context.

We walk through the streets with beautiful old brick houses and pass by the oldest tobacco shop in the USA: Demuth's Tobacco Shop.

After 1.5 hours we sit in the car to Bird-in-Hand. What a funny name for a place!

On the way, we constantly see the black carriages of the Amish, who only differ from the Mennonites by wearing rather colorless clothing in dark blue, black, and white, and not using electricity, which the Mennonites are allowed to use and also dress more colorful.

In Bird-In-Hand we get a piece of cake and take a carriage ride with an Amish. He does it for the money, but it's nicer than the carriage rides offered elsewhere, where 8-10 people sit inside and there are two horses pulling up front. We have the carriage all to ourselves. Our coachman's name is Mel, his little horse is called Sally.

Of course, we chat with him and he is very informative. It's nice that there are no inhibitions here, or that there don't have to be any. That's typical America again. Mel tells us about his 4 children and 14 grandchildren. He earns his living - besides the carriage rides - by making harnesses. The little ride lasts about 20 minutes and is really nice.

Then we stroll through a small shop with mostly handmade Amish things, like baskets, crochet items but also books that play in the Amish milieu and offer more church-related content in novel form. So here the world is still in order. Even in books!

An Amish woman works as a saleswoman, as usual with a white bonnet. Married men have beards.

We drive through small streets, through the fields and see men and boys plowing the fields with up to 8 horses on old harrows. We constantly encounter carriages, some quite racy.

We drive to Intercourse. It is very commercial here, probably due to the name of the place. For the otherwise prudish Americans, it is probably a daring experience to be able to say that they were in a place that translates to "Intercourse". Well.

We found other places more original. Here are tour buses, groups (mostly retirees), and many colorful shops. We treat ourselves to homemade Amish ice cream at Lapp's, one of the many German names here.

It has gotten hot - over 80°F (27°C) - and we wonder how it could have been so bad yesterday. Again we drive through the fields, along the farms with the typical silos and the laundry fluttering in the wind. Carriages with bearded Amish men in straw hats or women with white bonnets are everywhere. We drive to Strasburg, where we were in the rain yesterday. The towns are hardly bigger than an intersection, so after a few photos, we are done here too, get some coffee, and drive out of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country towards Philadelphia. Actually not a long way, but first we drive to King of Prussia, to the shopping center where I went broke four years ago...

We leave the parking lot at 6:50 pm and immediately get stuck in traffic. We take another road. Same situation. At some point, it starts moving. Then it stops again. On parallel routes - sometimes through not very trustworthy regions - we reach the city center of Philadelphia. We arrive at the Holiday Inn at 8:10 pm, which is super centrally located. We go to eat something on Merket Street, sit outside on the street, and are back at the hotel by 10:30 pm. Tomorrow there will be education, history, and another city tour!