One of the best places to visit in PA is Longwood Gardens, at least in my opinion. And it’s even better to go with friends, in this case, my hosts from Lancaster, who love to visit this place in all seasons. This was my second time here, and it was even better than the first visit five years ago.
Besides having fountains and flowers, there’s an amazingly huge organ that you can walk behind and see all the pipes. That display never gets old for me.
They also have some beautiful trees and this one in the light of golden hour absolutely begged to be photographed. So I did!
Longwood also has one of the best bathrooms ever. You walk down this beautiful curving hallway with walls of ferns, and then each door is a private little bathroom and sink. If you’re thinking of a bathroom renovation, this place sets a pretty high bar.
Art in the Dark
This visit, it was all about seeing the series of works called Light:Installations by Bruce Monro. In a word, awesome. I’m just going to highlight my three favorites, as there were seven works in total. The first one is Field of Light, a huge open field with oversized lollipops of light that displayed a rainbow of colors in ever-changing patterns.
Then it was on to an indoor light show that flashed color patterns set to music, using hundreds of CDs to reflect the lights. A pretty clever way to recycle old CDs!
My favorite installation was SOS, an expanding spiral of light boxes that flashed colors coordinated with sound and music.
It’s hard to explain how interesting this was, so here’s a link to a little video clip: SOS installation. I especially love the person who started dancing to the music as she walked through the light boxes.
Dancing Fountains
The classic show at Longwood is the dancing fountains, which include the main display, two smaller side fountains, and then a long row of smaller fountains, which even do fire amid the water (don’t ask me how they do that!).
Here’s a short video clip of the fountains in action: Mozart Music
Thanks, Peg and Larry, for treating me to yet another wonderful outing at Longwood Gardens! You know I’ll be back…
If there is magic on the planet, it is contained in the water.
Loren Eisley
Linda and I made plans to stop there on our way back from visiting her family in Myrtle Beach last Thanksgiving. Things didn’t work out the way we planned so we stopped to visit one of Linda’s friends who moved from Vermont to North Carolina. We would still like to get there, so thanks for the positive report.
Wonderful!
Beautiful photos. Thanks for taking us there. I was there once before Christmas. It was magical.
It’s Disneyland for adults! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for telling us about this great place.
Better than Vegas!!
Absolutely fabulous, Annie! I especially love the fountains, but the dancing girl in the video just made me happy. Adding this stop to our ever-growing list of places to visit in PA. Thanks so much for sharing!
Oh MY! This is fabulous, I have to add it to my list of places I want to go. We have an interesting garden in Michigan, called Meijer Gardens which has oversized (giant) sculpture in it, and sometimes art installations too. It’s beautiful, but nothing as cool as this! We were in PA in September, well, just driving through, on our way to and from DC. Maybe we need to do that again and stop over at this park!
We love it there. It’s amazing to see how the exhibits change throughout the year. I had no idea about the bathroom! Great pics.
I’m not far away in Carlisle…hope you are still nearby!
Wow!!! This is amazing! And hello to Peg and Larry.
This sounds fantastic. Makes me want to hop on a plane and head to Pennsylvania right now.
Fabulous! Enjoyed the pictures and your videos. Thanks, Annie.
The SOS display was really striking. I think we are going to take the Bros down to see the lights. Hopefully in a few years we can head back to see the new Conservatory!
I just knew you’d be up and probably reading this post 🙂 The Bros will definitely enjoy the lights!
superb images Annie!!
Thanks, Vida! I’m loving the iPhone 13 camera in low light situations.