Northern Delaware was a surprising short visit for us. Lots of hidden gems and perhaps the most interesting part for us was how centric and close to other cities it was. Northern Delaware is just in between Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. As an example, Wilmington is just about 40 minutes from Philadelphia, about 2 hours from New York City, about 2 hours from Washington DC, and only about 1.5 hours from Atlantic City. Wow just wow! I had no idea Delaware could be so centric.
If you plan to have a quick northern Delaware stop of passing by the area, here are a few ideas of what to see.
1. Nemours Estate
As you drive to it, this Estate is located exactly next to the Children's hospital in Wilmington, DE. In fact, they share the same entrance. Nemours estate was built in the early 1900s as a present from Alfred DuPont for his 2nd wife Alicia. The estate is about 47,000 square-foot mansion (according to the employees there) and contains more than 70 rooms, with plenty of them open to the public. Nemours was named after the DuPont family's ancestral home in France. During the holidays, each room was decorated with a beautiful Christmas tree and the gardens are absolutely stunning. If you like cars, make sure you visit the garage to see their vintage cars. They have a shuttle to move around the grounds but if you love to walk, I strongly recommend to walk around and enjoy the grounds (we did a mix of both since it was cold and we had the two kids with us).
2. Riverfront
There is plenty of water in this area. If you are in New Castle, you could walk by their waterfront (just by Old New Castle), or if you are in Wilmington, they also have a beautiful waterfront. Be aware that it gets really windy, so if you go in the winter, be ready for some cold wind.
3. Historic New Castle (Old New Castle)
We had no idea the the historic New Castle was going to be so charming. We were staying just a couple of minutes from this area, so we found it just driving around to see what we had closed by. To our surprise, we stumbled upon the Historic New Castle and we were so happy we did because there is so much history and beauty behind it. We went extremely early, so the shops and museums were still closed. If we go back, we will make sure to add them to our plans.
4. The beach (near New Castle)
Our kids saw the water so of course they started asking for the beach. This particular one was about 5 minutes from the Historic New Castle. It had a nice trail for walkers or runners, but we stayed by the beach so the girls could play by the sand.
We went to the beach twice to let the girls play!
5. We took a trip to Philadelphia
I know, I know, this is not quite Delaware but it was one of our choices for one day. It was only about 40 minutes (with traffic) from Northern Delaware. Most of my family (aunts and cousins) decided to drive to NYC, but we had just visited the city, so we decided to make the trip to Philly. We had an amazing day in the city, visiting the Bell, the Independence Hall, the Rocky Steps, and then finally, the German Christmas Village at the Love Park (where they have their famous Love sign). We also tried philly cheesesteaks from Pats and Genos, where we had mix opinions about who has the best cheesesteak in town.
Bonus: Hershey Park (on our way back home to Western PA)
On our way back home from Delaware, we drove around the Amish towns (including Lancaster) to show the girls some cute towns and decided to stop at Hershey Chocolate World for their factory tour and get some yummy chocolates.
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