One of the first towns settled in northwestern Maryland, FREDERICK , at the junction of I-70 and I-270 an hour west of Baltimore, was laid out in 1745 by German farmers lured from Pennsylvania by the promise of cheap fertile land. It grew to become a main stopover on the route west to the Ohio Valley, and the bulk of today's tidy town survives from the early 1800s. A visitor center (daily 9am-5pm; tel 301/228-2888 or 1-800/999-3613) at 19 E Church St has walking tour maps of the town, pointing out such places as the Schifferstadt House (Thurs-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun noon-4pm; donation), just off US-15, a stonewalled farmhouse built in 1753 and largely unaltered since.

According to a romantic poem popular with around 1900 schoolchildren, ninety-five-year-old Barbara Fritchie defiantly waved the US flag while Confederate soldiers marched past her home, the tiny Barbara Fritchie House (April-Sept Mon & Thurs-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 1-4pm; $2) along Carroll Creek on the west side of town. When Winston Churchill passed through, he stopped at the house and recited the poem from memory.

Camp David , the mountain retreat used by US presidents since FDR, where Jimmy Carter brought Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat together in 1978 to sign the historic Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, is hidden away in the mountains north of Frederick. Nearby Cunningham Falls State Park and the Catoctin Mountain Park both hold seemingly endless hardwood forests - great for fall color - in the midst of which are numerous preserved remnants of early homesteaders. Pick up details on hiking and camping at the main visitor center (daily 10am-4pm; tel 301/663-9388), off Hwy-77 two miles west of US-15.

Besides being a nice detour off the highway, Frederick is a good base for exploring places such as Antietam and Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. There are motels along both I-70 and US-15, and in town the Tyler Spite House , 112 W Church St (tel 301/831-4455; $130-160), is a pleasant B&B in an elegant 1814 mansion. For a bite to eat , try the soups and steaks at the Brown Pelican , 5 E Church St, or the burgers and steamed crabs at Cactus Flats , three miles north off US-15.