Downtown Bellefonte will again be home to two pop-up outdoor dining spaces, as well as a downtown Sidewalk Sale, on July 31, 2020, during the community’s monthly Friday in the ‘Fonte celebration. Photo Credit: Kathy Breidenbaugh

Whether you are exploring Bellefonte as a local resident or a visitor, the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau has some recommendations about how best to spend your time in and around this historic Happy Valley Community.

Stay at home and release the creative potential of your mind with several online interactive activities focusing on the 20th century art movement, Surrealism. This avant-garde movement in art and literature is characterized by dream-like visuals, the use of symbolism, and collage images. To describe something as surreal, you mean that the elements in it are combined in a strange way that you would not normally expect, like a dream. Several prominent artists came from this movement, including Salvador Dali, Dora Maar, Andrea Breton, Rene Magritte, and Frida Kahlo.

If you’re looking for the classic Happy Valley vibe that you remember from your college or otherwise younger days, you can still find it at one of the area’s many local bed and breakfasts, inns and other locally-owned and run accommodations options.

The first pizzeria in the United States opened in New York City in 1905. Today, there are more than 61,000 across the nation, making it fairly obvious that Americans have a love for pizza. Every day, 13 percent of the population eats some form of pizza, and we spend $38 billion annually satisfying our craving!

Bellefonte’s Victorian charm is luring curious customers and catching the eye of crafty business owners. Its small-town, down-home feel keeps you coming back for more. All year, there are shops to visit, restaurants to try and events to attend. Don’t miss out on all the tranquility found in Bellefonte’s small-town vibe with big-city trends.

Outdoor enthusiasts will find plenty of options in Happy Valley to test their hiking, biking or kayaking mettle – from the obligatory climb to the summit of Mount Nittany, to traversing through the old-growth pines of Rothrock State Forest, to navigating the Bald Eagle Creek from Bellefonte to Milesburg and beyond.

Visitors have a strong to desire to feel like a local and go home with a story or two. Sometimes a chain hotel experience isn’t exactly what they’re looking for when they are planning out where to stay and what to do. It is the people we meet and the unique experiences that make the trip great.

As home to Penn State University’s main campus, State College gets most of the glory in Centre County. But a beautiful borough 12 miles to the north has been an important piece of Pennsylvania’s history. Bellefonte, settled in 1795 and incorporated in 1806, is the county seat and has produced five of the Commonwealth’s governors plus two others who served as governors elsewhere (in California and Kansas). The contributions of all seven are commemorated with a memorial in Talleyrand Park.