Town · Bellefonte, Centre County
Bellefonte
A Victorian county seat of ironmasters' mansions and governors' homes, built around the Big Spring and Talleyrand Park, with trout fishing on Spring Creek.
Bellefonte, the seat of Centre County, is a hillside town of grand Victorian houses and stone and brick business blocks, built when iron furnaces and the law made it prosperous in the 1800s. It was home to several Pennsylvania governors, among them Andrew Curtin, the state's governor during the Civil War, and a memorial to them stands in Talleyrand Park.
The park follows Spring Creek past the Big Spring, which pours out millions of gallons of water a day and still supplies the town; legend says the French statesman Talleyrand gave the town its name, "beautiful fountain," when he saw it. Spring Creek is known for its wild trout, and State College is about ten miles away. Penn's Cave, Bald Eagle State Park and the bog and woods of Black Moshannon are all easy drives.
Make a day of it
In and around Bellefonte
Arboretum · State College, Centre County
The Arboretum at Penn State
The university's public garden, with the formal H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens, a children's garden and pollinator plantings, and the Palmer Museum of Art next door.
Photo: Daderot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Show cave · Gregg Township, Centre County
Penn's Cave
Flat-bottomed boats glide through this flooded limestone cavern, with the whole tour taken by water, and a separate tour explores a wildlife park on the farmland above.
Photo: Ruhrfisch, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
State park · Howard Township, Centre County
Bald Eagle State Park
The Nature Inn, a green-built lodge, looks out over a long reservoir beneath Bald Eagle Mountain, where boaters, anglers and birders spread out across the water and wetlands.
Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from USA; cropped by Beyond My Ken ( talk ) 00:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
State park · Rush Township, Centre County
Black Moshannon State Park
A tea-colored lake fringed by bogs, where a boardwalk leads among carnivorous sundews and pitcher plants, with CCC-built cabins, a beach and miles of forest trails all around.
Also nearby
Nearby
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Penn's Cave
Flat-bottomed boats glide through this flooded limestone cavern, with the whole tour taken by water, and a separate tour explores a wildlife park on the farmland above.
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The Arboretum at Penn State
The university's public garden, with the formal H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens, a children's garden and pollinator plantings, and the Palmer Museum of Art next door.
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Palmer Museum of Art
Penn State's art museum, which moved in 2024 into a striking new building in the arboretum, with galleries spanning American, European, Asian and contemporary art.
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Pennsylvania Military Museum
Exhibits on the state's soldiers from colonial times onward center on the 28th Infantry Division Shrine, with a walk-through World War I trench scene.
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Bald Eagle State Park
The Nature Inn, a green-built lodge, looks out over a long reservoir beneath Bald Eagle Mountain, where boaters, anglers and birders spread out across the water and wetlands.
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Penn Roosevelt State Park
Remote and rustic, this tiny park sits in a mountain bowl of the Seven Mountains, with a small pond, the remains of a Depression-era CCC camp and backcountry trails heading into Rothrock State Forest.