| Cultivating New York Canandaigua to Cooperstown, New York There's no straight shot through upstate New York, not with all those lakes in the way. But with all the good food to sample, it's worth taking the drive easy along the Finger Lakes, over the hills, through the farmland, and into river valleys. This road trip begins in Canandaigua, at the northern end of a western Finger Lake, and meanders south to Corning, then north to Ithaca, and gradually east toward Herkimer until it ends at the other great New York waterway, the Mohawk River Valley. New Yorkers and visitors are renewing attention to the land: the food grown here, the ecology that sustains farms and wildlife populations, and the waterways that fostered and transported culture across the state. Use our route planner to find hotels for your next trip. |  |  | ||||||||
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| New York Wine & Culinary Center 800 South Main St. Canandaigua, NY 14424 Call (585) 394-7070  |  |  Before there was the Big Apple, there were bushels of little apples and wheat, grapes, even black raspberries. Not to mention the cheese. Visitors to the New York Wine & Culinary Center can wander through the LeCesse New York Garden to see live examples of local agricultural crops that hint at how New York State, the enormous swathe of fertile, rolling country north and west of the big city, has been a breadbasket, cider maker, and cheesemaker for nearly 200 years. Learn how to cook using New York ingredients in the state-of-the-art hands-on kitchen, or sit down to a delicious meal of New York State-produced foods in the Taste of New York Lounge. Balcony diners enjoy a view of Canandaigua Lake and the City Pier. The Center provides information about New York state wine trails and offers a thorough overview of the industry in the Eber Brothers Wine Tasting room (non-alcoholic flights are available, too). | | |||||||
| Esperanza Mansion 3456 NY 54A Bluff Point, NY 14478 Call (866) 927-4400 |  |  Seen from the open-air patio at Esperanza Mansion, Keuka Lake sparkles and green hills rise from the shoreline. The food, however, pulls you back to the table. Accompanied by sweet potato fries and wrapped in puff pastry, the warm turkey and brie sandwich ($14) spills richly upon the plate and earns its neighborhood fame. Diners may enjoy the lunch and dinner options (inventive American fare) outside during good weather, inside when desired, or aboard the Esperanza Rose, which tours Keuka Lake on regularly scheduled cruises. Increasingly the menu options derive from local food sources via the Finger Lakes Culinary Bounty, an organization that connects "hometown" food producers with area chefs and retailers. The mansion itself has been a part of the landscape since 1838, when John Rose finished the Greek Revival home. Within its pale yellow stuccoed walls, visitors may spend the night in one of nine rooms or stay in the small inn, situated steps from the house. | | |||||||
| Bully Hill Vineyards 8843 Greyton H. Taylor Memorial Drive Hammondsport, NY 14840 Call (607) 868-3210 | |  The glaciers came to and left what is now upstate New York thousands of years ago, leaving behind deep lakes and rocky hillsides. That kind of soil drains well, and the deep water moderates the climate, making for perfect grape-growing conditions. Today Bully Hill (so named by English settlers in 1797 for their home in England) produces nearly 200,000 cases of wine in myriad varieties, from the sweetest whites to the driest reds. Vineyard visitors enjoy 30-minute tours (free) and the tasting room ($2), which makes wine tasting fun and casual rather than intimidating. An adjacent wine shop sells all of the more than 40 varieties made at Bully Hill. From May through October, a restaurant serves lunch daily and dinner Friday and Saturday. The Cooper Shop Building offers exhibits detailing barrel making. Next door, the Wine Museum and Art Gallery feature the contributions of the Taylor family to the local wine industry. | | |||||||
| Glenora Wine Cellars 5435 NY 14 Dundee, NY 14837 Call (607) 243-9500 | |  Glenora Wine Cellars, located about eight miles north of Watkins Glen, overlooks long, deep Seneca Lake. The rocky soil drains well, and the sheer volume of water in the 600-foot-deep Finger Lake moderates the local climate, both necessary conditions for growing grapes. Glenora produces champion vintages and invites visitors to tour the cellars where the wine is made. Tours are guided hourly from 11 am to 5 pm. Bottles are available for purchase in the shop, adjacent to the tasting room, where experts guide purchasing decisions. The Inn at Glenora offers rooms overlooking Seneca Lake, which include private balconies, custom-made Stickley furniture, and a complimentary bottle of wine in the refrigerator. Veraisons restaurant features a menu thick with locally produced meats and vegetables and, of course, Glenora wines. | ||||||||
| Corning Museum of Glass One Museum Way Corning, NY 14830 Call (607) 937-5371 | |
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| Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd. Ithaca, NY 14850 Call (800) 843-2473 | |
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| MacKenzie-Childs 3260 NY 90 Aurora, NY 13026 Call (315) 364-6118 | |
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| Seward House 33 South St. Auburn, NY 13021 Call (315) 252-1283 | |
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| Oneida Community Mansion House 170 Kenwood Ave. Oneida, NY 13421 Call (315) 363-0745 | |
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| Erie Canal Village 5789 Rome New London Rd Rome, NY 13440 Call (315) 337-3999 | |
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| Erie Canal Cruise 800 Mohawk St. Herkimer, NY 13350 Call (315) 717-0350 | |
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| Glimmerglass Opera 7300 NY 80 Cooperstown, NY 13326 Call (607) 547-2255 | |
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| The Farmers' Museum 5775 NY 80 Cooperstown, NY 13326 Call (888) 547-1450 | |
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| Earlville Opera House Arts Center 18 E. Main St. Earlville, NY 13332 Call (315) 691-3550 | |
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| Fly Creek Cider Mill & Orchard 288 Goose St. Fly Creek, NY 13337 Call (800) 505-6455 | |
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All destination photos © Rand McNally/Nathalie Strassheim | ||||||||||
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Cultivating New York
Explore the history, art, and science of glass-making from some of the world's earliest glass artifacts to such high-tech modern applications as fiberoptic cable and telescope lenses at the Corning Museum of Glass.The museum's collection represents the history of glassmaking throughout the world, with 3,500-year-old objects from Egypt as a starting point. Interactive educational exhibits let visitors play with lasers, bend glass without breaking it, and much more. The Studio offers even more hands-on glassworking experience. Daily glassblowing demonstrations are given during the Hot Glass Show. In the self-guided Steuben factory tour, see world-renowned Steuben glass being hand-blown and then watch the engraving process that follows, in which workers etch intricate designs into the glass using a rotating lathe. Afterward, visit the 18,000-sq-ft Glassmarket where you'll find Steuben, Corning, and consumer glass products and other merchandise.The museum and factory tour operate daily from 9 AM to 5 PM. The museum is open until 8 PM from July through Labor Day. The campus is closed January 1, Thanksgiving, and December 24 and 25.Parking is free. Admission is charged. Facilities are handicapped-accessible. Restaurant facilities are available.
Serious birders rub elbows with casual enthusiasts at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity, the epicenter of bioacoustics and avian research. Visitors come to watch and listen--on four-and-a-half miles of trails that wind through Sapsucker Woods, from the two-story windowed atrium, in the replica sound studio. The atrium overlooks the pond, which attracts kingfishers, ducks, and geese. Backyard species such as goldfinches, hummingbirds, and downy woodpeckers flit about the birdfeeder garden; scopes are available for up-close observation. Inside the sound studio, you can listen to birds and other animals, then record your versions of the calls and compare the sonic "thumbprints" to see how close you came. The Visitors' Center offers access to information on citizen science projects such as Project FeederWatch (regular folks count the birds at their feeders and report the numbers). A deceptively small Wild Birds Unlimited shop is crammed with kids' games, books, and activities; myriad birdsong recordings and field guides; an array of birding optics ($90-$2,000); bird-themed jewelry and house decor; and, naturally, bird feeders.
On a hill overlooking Cayuga Lake, a grand Second Empire "farmhouse" displays just about every permutation of the locally made MacKenzie-Childs housewares in a real-life setting. Tours of the farmhouse, held throughout the year, help visitors make sense of the blizzard of elaborately decorated chairs, rugs, sconces, and tableware encountered in the store. For MacKenzie-Childs devotees, the adjacent visitors center offers the chance to see the artisans in action via artisan demonstrations and a studio tour video. The buildings are located on a 65-acre farm that includes an aviary, duck pond, and Scottish Highland cattle pasture, all of which may be viewed on a walk around the grounds.
Inside this understated brick Federal-style home, visitors find a portal into the mid-19th century. William H. Seward was the home's most famous occupant, though he actually spent most of his time in Washington, where he was a two-term Senator, then secretary of state. Seward was an important national figure, and the home's furnishings reflect this. The dining room table displays a gigantic silver pear and candle holder complete with a fox hunting scene; the staircase was given to Seward by the California 49ers; a Burmese statue rests above the fireplace. Thousands of volumes line the library walls, which make room for a case enclosing Fanny Seward's personal library. It's a poignant personal touch--Fanny was her parents' favorite and died in her early 20s--in a house crammed with items amassed over decades of public service and world travel. In fact, the home is unusual because so many items are original to it, having been occupied by the Seward family until 1951.
Most people know Oneida as a brand of flatware, but few realize the company got its start as a utopian community that supported itself with metalworking. The Oneida Community, a utopian group dedicated to Perfectionism, began building the imposing structure in 1861. Over the years, it expanded to cover 93,000 square feet. Visitors may tour the house on their own or with a guide. An exhibit details the development and precepts of the Oneida Community, making the case for it being one of New York's first tourist attractions (some people were interested in seeing the fruits of the radical experiment that decried many social norms of the mid-19th-century). Some of the rooms are available as overnight accommodations, and the on-site restaurant, Zabroso, features Latin American, Spanish, and French cuisine.
Three small museums, several buildings, and a packet boat comprise the living history experience at Erie Canal Village. Located at the spot where in 1817 workers began digging the canal, the village offers the only authentic packet boat rides available on the canal system. Three times a day, visitors enjoy a short trip down the waterway and get a sense for what it was like as a 19th-century canal passenger. Arranged along a path, the various buildings include three houses representative of New York life before the canal, at its very beginning, and in its prosperous aftermath. The Erie Canal museum traces the history of the canal; the Harden museum demonstrates what horse-drawn travel was like; the New York State Museum of Cheese details cheesemaking in New York and how the Erie Canal affected the industry. Special programs and festivals are held throughout the summer.
For 90 minutes aboard the Lil' Diamond II cruise boat, Captain Jerry entertains with tales of the canal: what Clinton's Ditch was, how it was expanded, why it's still important to upstate New York culture. This particular stretch is along the Erie Barge Canal, dug parallel to the Mohawk River in the early 20th century. The tour passes giant storm surge gates reminiscent of the Thames Barrier, Historic Fort Herkimer Church (second-oldest in the state), and often birds of interest such as green herons. Lock 18, through which the boat passes, is the last one with all-original equipment. The boat goes in, the doors close, and suddenly the lock house seems to rise into the air as slimy walls creep up alongside the boat. When something especially cool happens, such as a great blue heron taking flight 20 feet in front of the boat, Captain Jerry interrupts his talk to make sure no one misses it. (Cruises mid-May to mid-October, $18 adults/$12 kids 3-10.)
Nestled into the landscape north of Cooperstown, the Alice Busch Opera Theater presents Glimmerglass Opera productions in a building designed for its setting. It resembles nothing so much as a very large barn, in keeping with the farms in the surrounding countryside. Inside, the overhead light fixtures echo quilting patterns common to the area. And prior to performances and during intermissions, the walls slide open to permit outside and inside to mingle--fresh breezes and cricket song wash over the audience. The four annual productions vary from season to season and are often critically acclaimed. Operagoers make an outdoors expedition out of the evening, bringing a picnic to enjoy pre-performance on the hillside overlooking the theater, and strolling the 43-acre grounds. The performance season is during July and August.
New York's agricultural heritage still gobbles, quacks, and moos at The Farmers' Museum. The original stone barn houses changing exhibitions, but the real action is outside at any of the 26 structures moved to the site to show what a farm and small village looked like. Costumed interpreters carry out daily tasks such as heating the spider (a covered iron skillet on legs) over an open hearth, pouring in shortbread batter, and moving it back over the coals--in long skirts despite the 90 degrees generated by the fire. A straw-hatted farmer shoos the Narragansett turkeys around their yard. Devon cattle lounge in the Sweet-Marble barn. Blacksmiths work the huge bellows during demonstrations. When the chores are done, kids repair to the relatively recently built Empire State Carousel to ride 24 hand-carved animals. The animals are native to New York; the frieze about the animals depicts famous New Yorkers such as Teddy Roosevelt. Watch out for the flock of black chickens roaming the grounds. Before leaving, shop the museum store. The pewterware looks authentic (candelabra for $200); the reproduction pen and inkwell sets ($52) look like exhibits at first. But they can be taken home.
Downtown Earlville boasts an arts-space gem in its Opera House. On the first floor, two galleries host changing exhibits, arts sales, and other events. On the second floor, a surprisingly spacious theater presents shows, concerts, and even kids programs (May through October). The seats are original to the "opera house" genre, if not the actual Earlville house: they come from the neighboring and now defunct Waterville opera house. Before and after performances, theatergoers enjoy the snug cafe area upstairs. Downstairs, a well-stocked gift shop offers interesting items--jewelry, pottery, paintings, drawings, and so on--made by local artisans.
Just outside Cooperstown, this local institution has harnessed the power of its namesake, Fly Creek, to press cider for more than 150 years. When the apple harvest begins in September, the presses start up and the cider runs sweet. The rest of the year, the Mill Marketplace store offers myriad snacks and foods, most displayed in bookcase-like fixtures and with the opportunity to taste many of them. Most are locally produced, no surprise as the Mill has partnered with Pride of New York, an organization that promotes New York State agricultural products such as cheese. One cheddar variety, for example, is cave-aged at nearby Howe Caverns. The Snack Barn & Deli, with outside seating, serves up ice cream, baked goods, and lunch items. One favorite: cider slush. Every fall the Mill hosts a Cider Festival, during which visitors can watch the presses in action from the 2nd-floor Cider Gallery.