Vermont and Niagara

The townships of the Berkshires are a lovely, green and leafy. It's a rural retreat for wealthy Bostonians and New Yorkers and it shows in the massive houses and neatly kept yards. Just north of Williamstown is Bennington, Vermont. Vermont is the most rural and underpopulated state in the Union. It's capital city is no more than a large town.

Bennington's claim to fame was a battle fought here during the War of Independence. The Vermont militia defeated a larger force of German mercenaries fighting for the British and on a hill overlooking the town there is a gigantic obelisk-like monument. You can take an elevator to a viewing platform about two thirds the way up, although the tiny windows make it difficult to appreciate the view. Almost as far as the eye can see is a landscape of rolling hills and trees.

In town I was delighted to stumble across Hemmings Garage and magazine, a classic car publication that I read. http://blog.hemmings.com/.... They have a free motor museum so we just had to stop and have a look.

Just outside Bennington are three covered wooden bridges. It took a little effort to find them as the signs pointing the way weren't very clear and the Lonely Planet was vague (in fact I think they'd reversed the order of the bridges and the route to reach them). We almost drove right past one! Having found the first it was fairly easy to find the second but the third eluded us completely.


Rural Vermont was strikingly different from the affluent Berkshires. The houses often looked run down and there were often collections of older cars littering the yards. We stopped for lunch at a crazy roadhouse called The Big Moose. I ordered the half-sub BBQ pork roll. It was so enormous I couldn't finish it all. We took it with us for the road. And that was only the half-sub!

From Bennington was had an epic six hour drive to Niagara. It poured with rain intermittently - so hard and strong we had to slow right down to avoid crashing. Thankfully drivers in the US are very courteous.

We arrived in Niagara Falls about 5.30pm and crossed the border into Canada. The falls mark the border between Canada and the US here and while the falls are mainly situated on the US side, the Canadian side has the best view. Because there isn't really anything to see at Niagara Falls, the town has turned itself into a veritable theme park. Everywhere you look is a 'haunted house' themepark, mini-golf, or Ripley's believe it not. Theme restaurants abound selling their usual overpriced shit. We opted for a simple meal that night, a pizza slice from Pizza Pizza. Simply the worst pizza we've eaten, ever.



At 9pm each night there is a lightshow at the falls. It's a pretty simple affair, just a play of coloured lights across the face of the falls.

The next morning we were up early - 9am - and took the Maid of the Mist tour. The Maid of the Mist has been running since the mid 19th century taking millions of visitors up close and personal with the falls. We were lucky we were up early as we missed the crowds. The boats running after 11am were packed to the gunnels.




We quickly visited the US side of the falls on our way to New York.

The Finger

The Finger Lakes district take their name from eleven glacial lakes that cut across New York state half way between Niagara and New York city. The district is spotted with wineries and holiday homes of rich New Yorkers. In the 1880s a particularly rich New York family built a mansion on their estate at Canandaigua. Built by Frederick Thompson, one of the founders of both the Chase Manhattan Bank and Citibank, and his wife Mary, the impressive Sonnenberg mansion & gardens is now a charitable trust and museum. The mansion is very impressive as it contains many of the Thompson's personal effects, including clothing and furniture. It was well worth a visit. http://www.sonnenberg.org



That night we stayed in a roadhouse in Ithaca at the southern end of Cayuga Lake.