Images from Amish Country

I got to spend a little time looking around the Amish country of Northern Ohio, specifically around the towns of Millersburg and Berlin. If you're ever in the area I can highly recommend checking it out. There's good food, antiques, historical sites, and tons of farm fresh cheese. Just watch out for the horses and buggies.

As always, click any photo for a larger version.


This is what it looks like driving through most of the countryside. Quiet, pastoral, and lots of livestock. I saw horses, goats, cows, sheep, llamas, etc.


Speaking of livestock, this Highland bull was right next to my car when I parked at one of the local attractions, a winery called...


Breitenbach. Here I got to try a rhubarb wine (as refreshing as a slice of watermelon) and a pretty decent icewine made from Vidal Blanc in the Canadian style.


I don't care what Sherwood Anderson said, the folks of Winesburg were kind, friendly people. I suppose someone had to start the genre of "all small towns are full of dark, shameful secrets", but there's a lot of normal, everyday people between the works of Grandma Moses and Stephen King.


One strange sight outside of Sugarcreek was a McDonald's proudly flying the Swiss flag. I was tempted to walk in and say, "Ich möchte ein Big Mac, bitte." The immigrants in the area were a mix of Swiss and German, though English speakers' confusion over the word Deutsch meant that many were referred to as "Dutch". This leads to the odd conundrum of a restaurant called Dutch Valley that specializes in Swiss-German cuisine, and all outsiders regardless of nationality are referred to as the English.