The Beauty of Northeastern Pennsylvania
Posted 08-14-2016 at 11:29 AM by Clark Park
Every year during the warmer months I take a couple of long weekend car trips around the Anthracite Coal Region in northeastern Pennsylvania. A trip I would recommend to anyone.
The terrain is the Appalachian highlands of "ridge and valley" mountains. Not rugged like the mountains out west, but the forest covered mountains akin to the Great Smokies south of here in Virginia and North Carolina or the Adironacks in upstate New York.
The scenery is gorgeous. Green and forested, with small farms here and there. The mountains as a backdrop. Small rivers, streams, ravines, waterfalls are everywhere.
The small towns, once home to tens of thousands of coal miners and their families, are charming in their own way. Mostly built in the second half of the 19th Century, there are often beautiful Eastern European churches - Russian Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic, or Polish Catholic, etc. - reflecting the ethnicity and religion of the miners. It's so picturesque to see a small town of modest row-homes dominated by a fancy church with five golden onion domes!
To think this rustic countryside is just a two hour drive from Philadelphia, Trenton, or Newark!
The terrain is the Appalachian highlands of "ridge and valley" mountains. Not rugged like the mountains out west, but the forest covered mountains akin to the Great Smokies south of here in Virginia and North Carolina or the Adironacks in upstate New York.
The scenery is gorgeous. Green and forested, with small farms here and there. The mountains as a backdrop. Small rivers, streams, ravines, waterfalls are everywhere.
The small towns, once home to tens of thousands of coal miners and their families, are charming in their own way. Mostly built in the second half of the 19th Century, there are often beautiful Eastern European churches - Russian Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic, or Polish Catholic, etc. - reflecting the ethnicity and religion of the miners. It's so picturesque to see a small town of modest row-homes dominated by a fancy church with five golden onion domes!
To think this rustic countryside is just a two hour drive from Philadelphia, Trenton, or Newark!
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