I recently spent my first full day in Easton, PA. Although, I’d driven through Easton hundreds of times over the past 19 years, I never spent a full day exploring on foot. Known to many as the birthplace of former boxing heavyweight champion, Larry Holmes and home of the Crayola Factory, Easton lies on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. The Lehigh River meets the Delaware River just south of the Northampton Street Bridge, which connects Easton with Phillipsburg, New Jersey at no charge to motorists.
Since I was coming from neighboring Bethlehem, I started by visiting the National Canal Museum inside of Hugh Moore Park. A $12 ticket gets you a 45-minute mule-driven canal boat ride as well as admission to the museum. I started with the boat ride, which went at an amazingly slow speed of 2 miles per hour. During the ride, you get a history lesson and some nice photo ops.
Josiah White Canal Boat
The museum is housed inside of a 14,000 square foot, two-story brick building. I spent less than 30 minutes inside and found the boat ride to be more interesting. Inside the museum, there are exhibits on the history of the canal, which are good for children as well as adults.
Hugh Moore Park
From there, I drove to the Sigal Museum, near Centre Square. I parked behind the museum and stopped at the Bank Street Creamery, where I had some raspberry sorbet. In the alleyway (Bank Street), I had a couple of nice photo ops before entering the museum.
bicycle parking on Bank Street
The Sigal Museum is one of four museums operated by the Northampton County Historical & Geological Society. They were offering free admission and I spent more than 30 minutes exploring. Their exhibits on the Lenape people were the most interesting. Downstairs there was an exhibit about Just Born Quality Confections (Peeps, Mike & Ike, Hot Tamales, etc.), which is located in neighboring Bethlehem.
From the museum, I walked through Centre Square, then followed Northampton Street to Riverside Park. There were excellent photo ops all along the way. I walked northbound through Riverside Park to the Easton-Phillipsburg Toll Bridge. Earlier this year, I walked from New Jersey to New York and back to New Jersey (via the George Washington Bridge). This time I walked from PA to NJ and back to PA, using a different bridge each time.
Easton-Phillipsburg Toll Bridge
Once I crossed the bridge into Phillipsburg, it was very unexciting and a tedious process to get to the Northampton Street Bridge, which would take me back into Easton. The 560 foot Northampton Street Bridge (known to locals as the “free bridge”) is shorter than the (1,020 foot) Easton-Phillipsburg Bridge and much more aesthetically pleasing.
after crossing the Northampton Street Bridge back into PA
After a long day of walking, I stopped at El Chasqui Peruvian & Colombian Restaurant. This is a nice family-owned place, which will likely be your only meal of the day. The food is excellent (Peruvian is my favorite American food) and filling. I cannot imagine eating this food every day, but the one or two times I eat Peruvian food every month, I really enjoy it. This was no exception. I ordered the Parihuela (Peruvian Seafood Soup) along with Ceviche Peruano and ended up taking some of each home.
When I got home, I booked my next trip to a foreign country……………………..
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