This weekend I did another trip with my lab mates. This time to Lancaster County, which is a convenient one hour drive West from here. It is most known for its many farms and of course the large population of Amish people.
In case you have never heard from them. Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
A unique sight in the area are the horse buggies. As most (all?) Amish refuse to use cars, the still go around in horse buggies. So seeing them on the street among the regular traffic is perfectly normal - but quite surprising to a tourist...
After that we toured the beautiful countryside. We saw a lot of farms, neat houses and covered bridges. The latter are wooden bridges that are covered by a wooden roof structure. Thus, they are protected from the weather an can last 100 years. Many of them are still in use for the everyday car traffic.
We also went for an extended walk trough a nice little state park. There we looked for some geocaches and enjoyed the nature. We definitely had a great day (a perfectly sunny one!) and we loved the beautiful rural views. Sometimes the landscape strongly reminded me of rural parts of Germany. But see for yourself in the pics.
In case you have never heard from them. Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
The Amish (pron.: /ˈɑːmɪʃ/ AH-mish; Pennsylvania Dutch: Amisch, German: Amische), sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, and reluctance to adopt many conveniences of modern technology. The history of the Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann.[2] Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish.[3]At first we went to a former Amish farm or village that has been turned into a museum. So we could learn something about their history and life style. Pretty impressive to see, and almost impossible to imagine to life like them. As an extra goody I could talk to a lady there who could speak Pennsylvania German. It sounds like a softened version of Suisse German mix with a bit of English. When she was speaking slowly, I could actually understand most of it! Quite astonishing.
In the early 18th century, many Amish and Mennonites emigrated to Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. Today, the most traditional descendants of the Amish continue to speak Pennsylvania German, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch. However, a dialect of Swiss German predominates in some Old Order Amish communities, especially in the American state of Indiana.[4] As of 2000, over 165,000 Old Order Amish live in the United States and approximately 1500 live in Canada.[5] A 2008 study suggested their numbers have increased to 227,000,[6] and in 2010 a study suggested their population had grown by 10% in the past two years to 249,000, with increasing movement to the West.[1]
A unique sight in the area are the horse buggies. As most (all?) Amish refuse to use cars, the still go around in horse buggies. So seeing them on the street among the regular traffic is perfectly normal - but quite surprising to a tourist...
After that we toured the beautiful countryside. We saw a lot of farms, neat houses and covered bridges. The latter are wooden bridges that are covered by a wooden roof structure. Thus, they are protected from the weather an can last 100 years. Many of them are still in use for the everyday car traffic.
We also went for an extended walk trough a nice little state park. There we looked for some geocaches and enjoyed the nature. We definitely had a great day (a perfectly sunny one!) and we loved the beautiful rural views. Sometimes the landscape strongly reminded me of rural parts of Germany. But see for yourself in the pics.
No comments:
Post a Comment