New York’s Lake District: A Many-Fingered Thing
Water crashes down from a rock pulpit a couple hundred feet overhead. It's a dramatic waterfall but not an unusual sight in the Finger Lakes. Six hours west of Boston, when you turn south off the New York State Thruway, it's not long before you start seeing the bumper sticker: "Ithaca is gorges." Which is true. But it's also true of many of the other towns in the lake country. Chasms, ravines, and the sudden flare of sunrise are commonplace here, where geology has been hard at work. The 11 lakes carved out by glaciers-more than two handfuls of fingers-span the broad stretch of land that lies south of Syracuse and Rochester. The slopes that drop down to their shores and the capacity of lake water to hold heat are ideal for growing grapes, even in an area known for tough winters. "The lakes are just big radiators," vintners often explain.Since the 1970s, there has been a boom in the region's wine industry, which once consisted of a few larger producers of champagne and sweet wine. Many small wineries turn out more classic table wines, and they jostle for space along the lakeshores. Their tasting rooms compete for customers, and any number of them have opened restaurants. There are 50 or so wineries on the two largest Finger Lakes, Cayuga and Seneca. In concert with the restaurants and bed and breakfasts that have sprung up alongside the vineyards, the wineries have organized into wine trails. These trails are a nifty way to check out the wine and food and, just as pleasurably, explore the cultural and recreational offerings of New York State's lake country.
Check into one of many choice bed and breakfasts, and then hit the road. You'll be traveling in north-south loops because the long, narrow lakes and the ridges between them have long discouraged the building of routes that run cross-country-thereby, of course, protecting from urban pressures much of what is precious about the landscape. Choose your route according to how much time you have. Exploring one lake will take a long weekend; try both lakes and the land between if you have the better part of a week. The "heads" of the two lakes are at the south ends. Ithaca, located at the head of Cayuga Lake, and Watkins Glen, at the head of Seneca, are very different towns. Ithaca is home to Cornell University and Ithaca College, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, lively musical and theater scenes, and so many truly enticing places to eat-the famous vegetarian Moosewood restaurant included-that is difficult to decide on one.
Watkins Glen is much smaller and a creature of summer. It's a place where people-lots of them-go to have fun. They fish and swim, they sail and motor on the lake, and they race cars. The town bursts into activity with the opening of the Watkins Glen International Race Track. Rooms for race weekends are often booked three years in advance. Even if you arrive during race season, don't let the excitement distract you, because the place the town is named after-the glen itself-is the most breathtaking of all the spectacular gorges in the region. And there are other less boisterous pleasures north of town on the west side of the lake, where you'll find a number of notable wineries, including Glenora, which has recently added an upscale inn and in the summer becomes a venue for top-flight jazz.
Up on the ridge that runs north from Watkins Glen toward Seneca Falls and its corollary Waterloo, is the Finger Lakes National Forest, where 30 miles of well-maintained trails invite hikers, skiers, and even horseback riders. The slope just downhill from the forest has seen the flowering of a good number of new wineries and adventuresome restaurants like the Stonecat Café. This section of the wine trail features a number of historical markers detailing the brutal accomplishments of General John Sullivan's campaign against the Iroquois-and if these pique your interest in the region's history, keep heading north.
Seneca Falls will be the closest thing to an industrial town you see on this road trip. Originally home to the families of canal builders and then mill and factory workers, the town, which faded with these enterprises, has begun a second flowering stimulated by a new historical consciousness. The National Women's History Museum is the most obvious signal of this, and throughout the historical district, private homes are being hammered and painted back to their Victorian splendor.
The Seneca River and Routes 5 and 20 lead out of town to a big wetlands and the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge. Birdlife is abundant here all year, and the fall and spring migrations bring truly impressive numbers of waterfowl and an occasional rare bird. At Montezuma, the path branches south into another loop, this one around Cayuga Lake. Stick to the wine trail on the west shore for a visit to Taughannock Falls, the highest waterfalls east of the Rockies-higher than Niagara, in fact, but scanter, of course. Or travel the east shore through the village of Aurora, which boasts the colorful farm where Mackenzie-Child produces its pottery whimsies, Wells College, and the possibility of a meal in the poshly renovated Aurora Inn.
All roads lead to back to Ithaca, your point of departure-departure for Boston or those wineries you still want to explore.
