Most of the region's towns are distinct and separate - urban clusters linked by a sea of farmland.

That's no accident. Towns that dot former stagecoach routes are usually about eight miles apart - an approximate day's ride. Careful placement of early towns and villages created a unique sense of place still evident in Lancaster and York counties.

Experience for yourself the treasures found in our Towns & Countrysides.

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The crossroads at
Landis Valley Museum & Village, Lancaster, is an actual Pennsylvania German 19th-century farm village where brothers George and Henry Landis grew up in the late 1800s. The lifelong collectors built a museum legacy featuring costumed interpreters, guided and themed tours and seasonal heritage events.

The 1792 stone house of Lititz tanner Johannes Mueller is part of the Lititz Historical Foundation complex, which also includes gardens and interpretive exhibits on the 250-year-old picture-postcard town.

The Ephrata Cloister was founded in 1732 as one of America's earliest religious societies and operated for more than 200 years. Costumed interpreters escort visitors through the surviving community buildings. Ephrata is famous for Pennsylvania German Fraktur lettering and its original a cappella music.

Snyders of Hanover , in business since 1909, offers a tour of their pretzel bakery that combines history with the fun of seeing pretzels being made. This one-hour guided walking tour shows you the raw-material warehouse, finished-goods warehouse (where you will see robotics at work), a packing room and the oven room. You'll also see how potato chips are made and get a free bag of pretzels.

Mae West, Mark Twain, W.C. Fields and other legendary performers appeared at the now restored Fulton Opera House, Lancaster. The 1852 theatre is one of the few such facilities designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Take a walk through time on the Historic Lancaster Walking Tour where you'll discover a modern city that hasn't forgotten its picturesque streets, historic architecture and centuries-old churches. Motorcoach-based riding versions of this tour are also available.

Bonham House is a restored 19th-century house once owned by York artist Horace Bonham (1835-1892) and lived in, continuously, by Bonham family members from 1875 to 1965. Period furnishings reveal social and cultural changes.

York Murals are bigger-than-life artworks that depict moments in York's local history. Discover more than 20 breathtakingly colorful wall murals on a walking tour of the city.

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