I travel down Rt 1 everytime I go see my mom. A lot has changed in the 18 plus years that we have lived 20 miles down the road. For one thing, it sure feels like more than 23 miles now. There are more traffic lights, more shopping centers, etc. It use to take about 30-35 minutes when Sean was little. Now it takes 45 min to 1 hour.
It is a historic area. The first very old town I pass through is Kennett Square. My maternal great grandfather lived here in the late 1800s for a year. Even though his stay was brief, he always talked about how much he liked it around here. Great gf did buy some land in Delaware at one time in his life that included a farmhouse and a short drive to the beaches down there.
Then I go past Longwood Gardens, founded by Pierre DuPont. The gardens are one of the most beautiful in this area. A few miles down, I drive through Chadds Ford where ‘The Village’ was just filmed a year and a half ago. Stop at the Chadds Ford Winery for a wine tasting. I go over the Brandywine River where the Brandywine River Museum is (I have the calendar shown on this webpage). A little ways down is the Brandywine Battlefield. We went there when I was little and my brother and I got yelled at for floating styrofoam coffee cups down a stream there. Sean’s been there for a school trip plus all the other neat museums nearby like Winterthur, Hagley and the Delaware Museum of Natural History. (I’ve never been to Winterthur myself).
If you are ever near this area, definitely the above places are worth a visit. Even down the road in Delaware County more (we live in Chester County) you will see the Wawa diary building across the street from the Franklin Mint. A little before this is the Newlin Grist Mill. In the nearby park, my brother and his wife had their wedding photos taken.
For your amusement check out Banjo the fence sitting horse and the beautiful Brandywine Valley countryside.
A little Brandywine Valley trivia:
The origin of the name Brandywine is unclear. Some say it comes from a story recounting the wreck of a Dutch ship at the mouth of the stream carrying “brandywine” – a potent Dutch spirit. Most historians, however, believe it comes from an early settler, Andreas Brainwende (or Brantwyn), who established one of the first grain mills on the lower river.