Hershey in the off season...

[VA_Traveller Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close VA_Traveller]

My wife and I are there for the weekend, get some xmas shopping done and maybe go to the chocolate factory..

Any hidden gems? Good places to eat?

[PeterS Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close PeterS]

We always stop by the great auto museum in the area...

Antique Auto Museum at Hershey, Pennsylvania

Pete

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

If you're going to be there on the weekend, check the Auto Museum for special events. I think there are more docents around on weekends as well.

Gettysburg National Park is the "must see" in my book - "Boyd's Bear Country" in Gettysburg is my middle daughter's "must see."

Not a "must see", but we liked "Kitchen Kettle Village." Some nice art, various free things for the kids to do (generally on par with "watch someone make fudge"), and horse drawn tours depart from there although we didn't get one. You can watch them preparing jams or jellies or whatever while someone explains the process as they go at the jam and jelly shop, which is our favorite thing there. Got watermelon pickles last time - going to serve them to dad at Thanksgiving and see if he thinks they taste like Grandma's.

Welcome to Kitchen Kettle Village

I don't like driving in Amish country there, though. Pretty country, but in Indiana, where there are lots of Amish there are also wide shoulders they can drive on - in Pennsylvania, they're right on the road, which makes me nervous.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

When is the off-season for chocolate?

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

When is the off-season for chocolate?

No such thing. Chocolate is always in season.

[SoundQ SVT Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SoundQ SVT]

No such thing. Chocolate is always in season.

Quoted for truth.

CHOCOLATE!!!

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

If chocolate is a passion, there's a little chocolate museum behind the Wilbur candy store in Lititz. About as unlike the Hershey experience as you can get - the store is tiny and crowded and you can hear the manufacturing above you and the museum's a collection of chocolate related stuff like chocolate pots (lots!), plus a video, and you can generally watch someone making something chocolate-y in the back (fudge or whatnot). Unlike Hershey, but still a very chocolate experience.

Our Candy Americana Museum - Wilbur Chocolate

There's a pretty little park with a stream flowing through it beside the factory that you can park at. Lititz Spring Park also has ducks you can feed, if you're into that.

Lititz also an early pretzel factory where you can roll your own pretzel (but not bake and eat it anymore), with a tour of the old equipment and then you get a bag of pretzels, plus they have fresh soft pretzels and the like - there's a charge for that, I forget how much but we enjoyed it.

Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery

Julius Sturgis is by the Moravian Church Square - there's a shop there with books and dodah stuff and a little museum and I believe they have tours of some of the buildings in the summer and maybe into the fall months, dunno. We didn't check those out, just saw they were there.

And there are chocolate factory tours in York, also about an hour away from Hershey:

Wolfgang Candy

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Hobbittess,
Thanks for posting all the yummy things to do.

I want to go to Hershey next year so I'm printing all this stuff out for next years trip.

[VA_Traveller Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close VA_Traveller]

Back now. The Suites are set up nice for location.

If anyone goes, and happens to go to Chocolate World, don't pay for the "Tasting Tour". $10 to taste 4 mini bars

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

Hobbittess,
Thanks for posting all the yummy things to do.

If you're a chocolate fan and a reader, you should give The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars a shot. It's by Joel Glenn Brenner, and although it starts out with the Mars company for dramatic purposes, I think she's right fond of Milton Hershey and he gets his time. Also interesting to hear about what happened after Milton died, the orphanage, etc. It focuses on the US chocolate makers, but gives glimpses into the history of chocolate and how it was developed in other countries as well. I think it's well written and am enjoying it muchly.

[dukebigtom Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dukebigtom]

There is a nice clock museum not too far away too.

BigTom

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

Big old German clocks? Now we are talking. I love clocks, not only the the mechanics of the works, but the beautiful wood, carvings and the chimes.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

They specialize in nineteenth century clocks and watches. I think they've updated their website since I last looked, but maybe it's just that by the time I heard about it I was paring back instead of adding so I never hit the actual site. There's a lot to do within an hour or so of Hershey; everytime I see this thread I want to get back there.

National Watch & Clock Museum