Discover Mercer: Culture, Nature and History

Mercer combines impressive cultural sites with expansive landscapes and a variety of trails. When planning your trip, you can therefore switch between museum days, historical discoveries, walks, bike rides and experiences in the marshland. When looking for a holiday apartment, the desired mix is particularly important: If culture is the focus, the museums and historic sites around Trenton and Princeton are a good choice; for days in nature, the parks, forests and waterscapes are ideal.

Art, Museums and American History

One special attraction is Grounds For Sculpture. The 42-acre sculpture park combines a museum with a Level II-accredited arboretum. More than 300 sculptures and six indoor exhibition galleries create different opportunities to experience art outdoors and in exhibition spaces. Grounds For Sculpture also hosts performances and lectures and offers workshops on artistic creation. This makes the site interesting for travelers who do not want to limit their visit to viewing sculptures.

In Trenton, the New Jersey State Museum preserves more than two million objects from natural and cultural history, archaeology, ethnography and fine art. The current exhibition “Remembering the Revolution” displays the original “Eakins bronzes” as well as a rotating selection of works inspired by or commemorating the Revolutionary era. The Old Barracks Museum introduces visitors to a complex built in 1758 as a military barracks during the French and Indian War, which later served British and American troops during the American Revolutionary War. At the William Trent House Museum, you can also encounter a National Historic Landmark along several historic routes.

Princeton also offers notable historic sites. When it was built in 1756, Nassau Hall was the largest academic building in the American colonies and served for five months in 1783 as the temporary seat of the Continental Congress. Princeton Battlefield State Park adds another perspective with paved trails, natural-surface trails and information panels about the battle and the American Revolution. The Princeton University Art Museum’s Creativity Labs offer hands-on activities. Visitors who want to combine such visits with exercise can reach the park from downtown Princeton on foot or by bicycle via the paved trail along Mercer Road or via trails from the Institute Woods to the south.

Trails, Forests and Waterscapes

The Lawrence Hopewell Trail is a more than 20-mile-long bicycle and pedestrian trail and transportation corridor through public and private areas in the townships of Lawrence and Hopewell in Mercer County. For planning your day, it offers a different view of the region than a visit to a single museum. As a protected open space spanning more than 550 acres, Institute Woods offers over eight miles of trails. Mercer County Park covers more than 2,500 acres across the townships of West Windsor, Hamilton and Lawrence; it also has four designated mountain biking trails.

Mercer Meadows provides access to Stony Brook, Willow Pond and Rosedale Lake. The Delaware River Scenic Byway offers another perspective on the landscape, with farmland, forests and rock formations. Part of the Abbott Marshlands, the northernmost tidal freshwater marsh on the Delaware River, lies within John A. Roebling Memorial Park. There, you can kayak through the marshland and observe numerous beavers, turtles and birds. The park is also home to Watson House, the oldest house in Mercer County, built in 1708 by Isaac Watson.

Experiences for Different Daily Rhythms

The Tulpehaking Nature Center combines hands-on programs about science, nature and archaeology with walking trails and a play area for children. It is located at the intersection of three major trail networks in the marshland and provides access to Watson Woods, Spring Lake and Abbott Farm. At the same time, it lies within the Abbott Farm National Historic Landmark, which represents 13,000 years of human history in the Delaware River Valley. For a shared outing, you can combine nature observation, exercise and historical topics there.

At the Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain, stone foundations and other remains recall the former agricultural settlement of Honey Hollow. Howell Living History Farm offers tours of a one-room schoolhouse, a farmhouse dating from the late Revolutionary War period, a cemetery and archaeological sites of a blacksmith shop, a gristmill and two sawmills. This allows visitors to learn about the past not only through exhibits, but also through preserved sites and traces of settlement.

Choose Mercer as Your Base

Plan your holiday apartment around the focus of your trip: Art, museums and Revolutionary history lend themselves to a cultural stay, while parks, trails, lakes and the marshland enable different day plans. This allows you to put together individual cultural and nature days according to your interests.

For further orientation, you can also choose Hightstown, Windsor, Ewing, Hamilton Township, Pennington and Robbinsville as additional locations.

For the overarching travel overview: New Jersey.