Experience the best of Lancaster

Lancaster lies in south-eastern Pennsylvania, in a countryside of rolling fields and stone barns settled by German-speaking farmers, the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Amish and Mennonite communities of the county still farm with horse-drawn equipment, and buggies share the back roads with cars. In the city, Central Market, housed in a red-brick Romanesque building, has been a farmers' market since the 18th century.

Lancaster was briefly the capital of the United States for a single day in 1777 and later of Pennsylvania. Wheatland, the home of President James Buchanan, and the Fulton Theatre, from 1852, are among its old buildings, and the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum shows rural Pennsylvania German life. Steam trains run at Strasburg, near the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, and the Ephrata Cloister preserves an 18th-century religious community. Hershey lies to the north-west.

Shoofly pie, a molasses tart, whoopie pies, chicken pot pie with square noodles, soft pretzels and chow-chow, a pickled relish, are the dishes of the Pennsylvania Dutch kitchen, bought at roadside farm stands. Sweet corn ripens in summer, autumn brings the harvest, and winters bring snow.