Tour of Bethlehem

A few weeks ago we decided to explore downtown Bethlehem to pass the time until dad got home. We discovered it was a pretty fun, quaint place with lots of history. This building apparently is one of the oldest buildings in Bethlehem. I believe it was built during the 1740's. Bethlehem was established by some members of the Moravian Church during that time period.
This is the Moravian Star that you see on everything. They even have a big one on the hill that is lit at night. I would like one to hang from our door but apparently they are not cheap. Maybe for Christmas.

This is the sign for the Moravian Book Shop (as if you couldn't figure it out for yourself). I guess this is suppose to be the oldest book store in the U.S..

The bookstore takes up a good portion of the block and had some neat things inside. We only saw some of them because I was worried about my kids breaking something:)
Due to the fact this is "The Christmas City" they sell Christmas decorations year round. These photos are for Kaicie. There is another shop in town that's pretty big called the Christmas shop. I have yet to make it there but it also sells decorations year round.
We didn't look at the stuff too long because they had some very beautiful glass decorations.
According to a brochure we got when we moved here, Bethlehem has more historical buildings than colonial Williamsburg, VA. We decided to check out the little village of them just down the hill past the one in the picture. Before we headed down we saw some buildings next to this one that looked interesting. Jackson of course spotted St. Luke's Hospital in the distance. You can't really see it very well through the haze but it's the grouping of red buildings on the hill. Jackson can spot any billboard, building, ambulance or sign for St. Luke's anywhere. He's a big fan of "his dad's hospital".


This is the Moravian Church.
This the Bethlehem Hotel which is also very old but really fancy now. We had a new resident function there and it was very nice. I don't think we'll be staying there anytime soon.
There are a bunch of buildings like this one just down the hill. They are all original buildings from the 1700's.
Here is another view of St. Luke's. Come and visit us we'll give you a tour of the whole city...maybe even St. Luke's.