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Bethlehem - Part 1
Written by: Janet Pope
Christmas Displays, Christmas Lights and Crayola factories, oh my...
As we exited our car in downtown Bethlehem, we were greeted by the sounds of music and carols being played throughout the streets. Upon arrival, we walked the quaint Main Street and grabbed a quick lunch at "Johnny's Bagel & Deli". We tried their two special homemade soups of the day: Chicken Noodle and Vegetable Beef which were both delicious and served with a generous portion of Bagel Chips.
Next stop was the Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts. The weekend museum coordinator, Mary Meilinger, expressed her interest in her job, by sharing her vast personal knowledge of the collection. The museum, which was started and inspired by a local artist, Carol Prichett, is now maintained in 3 houses that have been joined together. There we saw a large collection of red Bohemian glass and many rooms decorated in Victorian motif. The rooms were especially beautiful as they were decorated for the holidays.
From there, we traveled a short distance to Allentown to see the "Liberty Bell Shrine Museum". Again, we found a site coordinator who has passion and pride in his work. Josh Fink shared with us information and local bits of historical trivia. I was surprised to find out that there had been 53 exact replicas made of the Liberty Bell in 1950, and that each state was given one of them. The home of this museum at the United Church of Christ, was given the honor of housing the bell presented to Pennsylvania, since the original Liberty Bell was hidden there in 1777 for 9 months during the Revolutionary War. Mr. Fink also showed us the church upstairs. It was also decorated in holiday splendor complete with trees, lights, and a magnificent crèche imported from Italy.
In Allentown, we discovered what seemed like a well-kept treasure, The Allentown Art Museum. In the museum, we enjoyed seeing the library room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was great to be able to actually "walk right into" his creation. We also loved the "sound sculptures" by Harry Bertoia, which were amazing in concept, quality and tones. The extensive collection of European and Contemporary paintings was quite a wonderful surprise. Here in Allentown is a world-class sampling of art forms from the Middle Ages to the present. Rather than spend thousands of dollars to travel to Europe to study art, one can just visit this museum and stand below Christian themed ancient artwork, or even view a modernistic painting.
At night we hopped on a bus tour leaving from the Bethlehem Visitor's Center. For almost 1 hour, we relaxed and looked out our bus window as Chris our tour guide narrated the city and it's historic points. We learned that Bethlehem puts up 300 Christmas trees around the city, hence the name, "The Christmas City". It is also known as "The City of Churches" with over 150 of them.
On Main Street in Bethlehem, we ate at the Sun Inn which is a restaurant situated in a historic building that fought back from almost certain demolition. The entrees were named after famous people who stayed at the Inn like George Washington's Beef Tenderloin and John Hancock's Tuna Steak. The first floor of the building is maintained in the original period for visitation by the general public and civic organizations, and the second floor is a four-star restaurant, reminiscent of the way it looked during the Revolution. I began dinner with the French Onion soup, which was very good. My husband tried the crab cake appetizer, which must have been very good because he proceeded to finish the last bit without offering me a taste. For my main course I chose David Rittenhouse's Dijon Tarragon Pork and my husband had the Ethan Allen Lamb Chops which were both excellent and regrettably too much to finish.
Next we decided to see the holiday display "Lights in the Parkway" which was an illuminated winter wonderland of candy canes, teddy bears, reindeer, penguins and storybook characters. It reminded me of the huge home light displays we used to take the kids to see only this was a lot warmer since we were in our own car listening to songs picked out by the mayor piped in on the radio. Just as we did in the past, we oohhed and aahhed at the lights and sang along with the Christmas Carols.
We finally ended our packed day at our hotel, the Ramada Inn at the Malls where we found our room to be very spacious. We collapsed on the bed, put on the TV and woke in time for the continental breakfast.
Read part 2 | Read part 3
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