Standing along the eastern banks of the Schuylkill River, Reading (pop. 81,207) is more interesting than its frightening title, “Factory Outlet Shopping Capital of Southeastern Pennsylvania,” would lead you to expect. Ornately turreted row houses line 5th Avenue (US-222 Business) through the residential districts, downtown holds a number of well-maintained businesses and signs from the first half of the century, and a 85-foot, 100-year-old pagoda offers panoramic views from the summit of Mt. Penn, east of town. Perhaps the best place to stop is along US-222, at 2738 Penn Avenue on the north side of town, where Schell’s Hot Dogs, BBQ, and Miniature Golf (610/678-8333) offers everything a road-tripper could ask for. (Well, almost.)
For history buffs, two worthwhile places to visit sit southeast of Reading along the Schuylkill River. The closer of these is at Birdsboro, 10 miles from town and a mile north of US-422. The Daniel Boone Homestead and Birthplace (closed Mon.; $4; 610/582-4900) marks the site where the great frontiersman was born in 1734. Back in Birdsboro on US-422 at 668 Ben Franklin Highway, Gregory’s Diner (610/385-7900) is open daily 5 am–10 pm for the usual fare plus very good pies.
Well worth the winding five-mile drive south of Birdsboro via Hwy-345, the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site (daily; $4) preserves intact an entire iron-making community that thrived here from the colonial era until the mid-1880s. Park rangers fire up the furnace and demonstrate the primitive foundry (melting aluminum rather than iron to take the “heat” off the ancient tools), and exhibits trace the iron-making process—mining the ore, making charcoal, and fabricating the finished product, which here at Hopewell was primarily pig iron and stoves.
