Whether you come down Hwy-1, or cruise across on the ferry from Cape May, New Jersey, LEWES makes a good introduction to the Delaware coast. Its natural harbor at the mouth of Delaware Bay has attracted seafarers ever since a Dutch whaling company set up a small colony here in 1631. Lewes' current role as a summer resort hasn't obscured its substantial history, outlined in the mock-Dutch Zwaanendael Museum , in the heart of town on Savannah Road at Kings Highway (Tues-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun 1.30-4.30pm; free). The CVB next door (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat 10am-2pm; tel 302/645-8073 or 1-877-465-3937, ), housed inside a gambrel-roofed 1730s farmhouse, has walking tour maps of the town, which point out the handful of eighteenth-century houses and outbuildings collected from around the area to form the Lewes Historical Complex (mid June-early Sept Tues-Sat; $4) on Front Street three blocks north. Along the canal, keep an eye out for the Overfalls Lightship , which lit the entrance to Delaware Bay until 1961, and, lined up along the top of Memorial Park , the array of cannons, one said to be from an old pirate ship. You can walk almost everywhere in town, or rent a bike from Lewes Cycle Sports, 514 Savannah Rd (tel 302/645-4544).

Though Lewes can justly boast of being "the First Town in the First State," most people come here for its beach rather than its history. There's an extensive strand along the usually calm Delaware Bay at the foot of the town, while three-thousand-acre Cape Henlopen State Park (tel 302/645-8983), where the bay meets the open ocean just a mile east of the town center, offers the chance to camp beside the biggest sand dunes north of Cape Hatteras. For a nice day out, or a possible next leg of your journey, take the seventy-minute ferry trip across the Delaware Bay from beside the state park to the pleasant Victorian beach resort of CAPE MAY , New Jersey (6-15 services daily all year, first at 8am, last at 8pm, or 9.20pm mid-May to mid-Oct; $6.50 per person, $20 per car May-Oct; $4.50/$18 Nov-April; tel 302/645-6030 or 1-800/64-FERRY).

Except on peak summer weekends, Lewes is quiet enough that you should have no trouble finding a motel room along Savannah Road, such as Vesuvio's (tel 302/645-2224; $75-100), just before the drawbridge, or The Captain's Quarters (tel 302/645-7924, ; $75-100) on the far side. Most of the restaurants , not surprisingly, feature seafood, such as the Lighthouse (tel 302/645-6271) by the bridge, where you get a free cruise if you dine between 4 and 6pm, or there is the more formal Italian dining at La Rosa Negra at 128 Second St (tel 302/645-1980), back in the town center.