Chase the history:
Tour splendid colonial homes that provided respite to the commanders of the American Revolution.Peer down the barrels of canons that once trained on British ships during the War of 1812.
Then savor the cuisine:
Sample fresh-picked crab meat mixed with almond slivers, cheese and lemon piled on an English muffin.
Dine on baked country ham surrounded by oyster fritters and fresh vegetables.
And marvel at nature:
Watch hundreds of white geese descend on a pristine pond, covering the surface like a mantle of snow.
Look out at a swaying sea of gold as slanting rays of morning sunlight dance in the salt marshes.
These are just a few of the delicacies of Delmarva - a fascinating finger of land tucked between the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean.
The name - sounding like that of an international business conglomerate - is the best geographers could come up with for the picturesque peninsula that includes coastal areas of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
The heart of the region is the eastern shore of Maryland. Its quaint villages are alive with tall masts, white sails, clapboard houses and picket fences. Its seafood is dished out from dockside crab shacks and four-star restaurants.
Its marshes are home to tens of thousands of Canada geese. And many of its natives still tend crab pots and dredge oysters from skipjacks, the last working sailing ships in America.
Behind the sights, sounds and scents of the region is a history as rich as its oyster stew and as convoluted as its shoreline. The area's strategic role as a ship-building center and its proximity to Washington, D.C., put it in the eye of the storm during the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War.
The quaint seaside town of St. Michaels offers an ideal view of past and present. Tourists dine at dockside restaurants with names like Bay River Gourmet and Espresso House. Or browse through trendy shops with names like The Harbour Dasher or Salt Water Antiques. A procession of pleasure boats cruise the bay.
Visitors also stop by the 250-year old Amelia Welby House, once home to the first poet laureate of Maryland. Or the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, with its working lighthouse, boat-building exhibits and steamships. Or the Freedom Friend's Lodge, a historic meeting place for the black community.
And everyone learns the story behind the phrase "The Town that Fooled the British."
During the War of 1812, the British planned to destroy St. Michaels' ship-building capacity by shelling it from barges under the cover of darkness. Forewarned of the attack, residents hoisted lanterns atop boat masts and called a townwide blackout. British marines trained their guns on the makeshift lights and overshot the town.
For more seaside delights and historical intrigue, many travelers stop at the cozy town of Oxford, where they watch majestic sailboats with tall masts cruise the harbor, shop for antiques or cross the Tred Avon River in the country's oldest ferry.
Here the history lesson often takes place at the Robert Morris Jr. Inn., a restored mansion converted into a fine restaurant with stone fireplaces and 18th-century fishing murals.
Author James Michener, while researching his novel "Chesapeake," declared the inn's crab cakes to be the best of any commercial establishment in the area.
The inn is named for a wealthy personal friend of George Washington, Robert Morris Jr. He bankrolled much of the American Revolution and became the first Secretary of Finance of the United States.
Morris also became one of the most respected figures in the new nation but met a tragic end - killed by a cannon shot during a 21-cannon salute in his honor.
Civil War buffs often visit Fort Lincoln, a decaying Union prison at Point Look Out, on the southern tip of Maryland. Chosen for its proximity to the Confederate state of Virginia, conditions were so squalid that 3,500 prisoners died there in the last two years of the war.
Then there is the old grist mill in Wye Mills, Md., which was built in 1671, rebuilt in 1720 and rebuilt again in 1841. A water wheel still grinds cornmeal at the mill, which supplied grain to troops at Valley Forge during the Revolution.
Not far away sits the 400-year-old Wye Oak, 95 feet tall and 37 feet across. Its sheer size earned it the designation as Maryland's State Tree.
History aside, no trip to Delmarva is complete without a visit to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, 17,121 acres of sweeping tidal marsh, freshwater ponds and woods.
Blackwater is the main wintering grounds for Canadian geese, snow geese, swans and ducks, with their combined numbers reaching the tens of thousands in winter months.
The birds tend to gather around a visitors' center in the heart of the refuge, creating a spectacle when thousands take flight and head for one of the ponds in the park.
The refuge, also home to endangered bald eagles and falcons, evokes the feel of place that time passed by, making it a unique stopover at the historic time capsule called Delmarva.