FINGER LAKES     
TOURISM IDEAS    

The staff at Otels hope you enjoy the following Travel Ideas
from travel writer (and enthusiastic naturalist) Mark Kolakowski
Best wishes on your next trip to New York state!

The Finger Lakes region of New York

By Mark Kolakowski
Copyright © 2006-2011 by the author

The picturesque Fingers Lakes region of western New York state lies between Syracuse and Rochester. The region is best known for its dozens of small wineries, some of which now produce world-class interpretations of traditional European styles. To supplement their income, a growing number of wineries have opened dining and lodging establishments on their grounds.

In an interesting crosscurrent, the luxury Belhurst Hotel in Geneva, NY (an 1880's stone castle with 14 guest rooms overlooking Seneca Lake in the heart of the Finger Lakes) recently opened its own vineyards and a large wine shop, selling its own label exclusively.

Wonderful to visit from spring through fall, here are some activities to consider in the Finger Lakes region:
 

   
Finger Lakes Region Wine Route

• For wine lovers, there are dozens of wineries to visit. My personal favorites are Dr. Konstantin Frank of Hammondsport and Hermann J. Wiemer of Dundee. Both produce outstanding Rieslings and Gewurztraminers. Dr. Frank also produces:
  

-- a noteworthy Rkatsiteli, a varietal indigenous to the Caucasus region and reputedly
    the most widely-grown wine grape in the world, but rare in the U.S. 

-- an outstanding 2010 Gruener Veltliner, the preeminent varietal in wine-loving Austria.
    It bears comparison with the best examples from its homeland. My taste buds
    recorded a subtle similarity to the finest wild green teas from the mountains of Korea.

• I also highly recommend Lamoreaux Landing Wine Cellars on the east side of Seneca Lake for an extraordinary lineup of elegant wines in all varietals. My picks: their 2006 Dry Riesling (bargain priced, and in limited supply),  2010 Semi-Dry Riesling and 2009 Gewurztraminer.
    
• Honorable mentions, based on my 2011 trip, go to Ravines Wine Cellars where the quality continues to climb (try the affordable yet excellent Keuka Village White; their Sauvignon Blanc also is memorable; both have grassy, herbal and mineral notes). Also noteworthy are Keuka Spring Vineyards (2010 Riesling and 2010 Gewurztraminer) nearby ... as well as Swedish Hill Winery (try the Dry Riesling) between the northern ends of Seneca and Cayuga Lakes).
    
• Finally, I recommend the Rieslings at Anthony Road Winery and the dry Alsatian-style Reserve Riesling at Heron Hill. Sheldrake Point produces an unusual and interesting Gewurztraminer.
     
• McGregor Vineyard's is the only other area producer of Rkatsiteli, and it is very good.
  As of my visit, McGregor Vineyard's  2010 Rkatsiteli-Sereksiya blend was, alas, not yet available for sale. Their bargain priced dry Cayuga White (many similarities to the Ravines Keuka Village White) was a decent consolation prize.
   
  Lunch Suggestion in the Finger Lakes Wine Region:
    
  Bully Hill Vineyards is the highest-elevation winery in the region, with a commanding view of Keuka Lake from a dizzying height above Hammondsport. The lunch here may be the best in the area. I was truly impressed by the barbecued pulled pork, tender and perfectly smoky. Their Bass Riesling and NY State Riesling were especially good.  Other Finger Lakes wineries undertook expensive building programs (before the recession), erecting imposing tasting rooms and retail spaces, so look for cafes open for lunch. 
  
  [Bully Hill was founded by the late Walter S. Taylor (1931-2001), a scion of the Taylor Wine family and a real character. An artist as well as a wine enthusiast, Walter designed the quirky, humorous labels adorning its bottles. He established the rambling wine museum on the premises, and his former art studio next door is now an equally unkempt gallery of his works. He was fired from the family firm for insisting that they turn their focus from cheap, sweet jug wines made with native grapes to higher-quality, drier wines made from classic European varietals.
   
  After his relatives sold Taylor Wine to Coca-Cola in 1977 (it since has passed through various other hands), Walter was enjoined from having his surname appear anywhere on his Bully Hill bottles, including as signatures on the artwork. He turned this into a clever marketing ploy, dubbing himself "the man with no name" and saying that Coke had taken his name and heritage, but could not get his goat. Two of the biggest selling Bully Hill wines have his drawing of a goat on the labels. He also began signing his name on the labels as "Walter S. --------," evoking an early incident in his fight with Coke when he had to recruit students to black out his surname with magic markers on the labels of Bully Hill bottles.]
      
  
• The Keuka Lake wine trail, which ascends a steep hill north of Hammondsport, offers spectacular views.
    
• Hammondsport features both the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum and the Pleasant Valley Wine Company Museum (free), both very worthwhile. Curtiss was a local boy who became a premier motorcycle designer, manufacturer and racer circa 1900, before becoming one of the leading pioneers of aviation. The wine museum has the most complete display related to the local industry.
   
• Around Ithaca are Buttermilk Falls and Taughannock Falls. The latter are especially impressive, the tallest in the east, even surpassing Niagara Falls.
   
• Watkins Glen State Park and the various waterfalls in the town of Montour Falls to the immediate south are also worth visiting. Just note that the falls in Montour Falls are at their peak in spring with the snow melt, and can be a slight trickle by mid-summer, even during a very rainy summer such as that of 2009.
   
• With the publication of Team of Rivals, a book about Lincoln’s cabinet, visitor traffic is way up at Secretary of State William H. Seward’s home in Auburn. Among the outstanding tour guides there (as of my 2006 visit) is a direct descendant of Seward named Ray Messenger, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his famed ancestor.
   
• Auburn also has a historic home associated with abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
   
• Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge (free), northeast of Seneca Falls, is home to Bald Eagles and is a major migration stopover and breeding grounds for waterfowl.
   
• Seneca Falls, the site of a major votes-for-women convention in the 19^th century, is home to the Women’s Rights National Historic Park, which includes the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You also can see the double locks of the Cayuga-Seneca Canal in town, which move boats across a 49-foot change in elevation.
     
• North of Watkins Glen, Castel Grisch offers a tasty German menu for lunch daily, and also is open for dinner, with a German buffet, Thursday-Saturday. (See view from Castel Grisch below.)  North of Hammondsport, Heron Hill serves very good flatbread pizzas. Both offer imposing views of the vineyard and lake views from high atop hillsides.
   
  
   
• The Pleasant Valley Inn, on route 54 south of Hammondsport, is an excellent fine dining choice, open Thursday-Sunday nights in season. The nearby San Carlos restaurant offers above-average Mexican cuisine at budget prices, specializing in Sonoran dishes. The Switz Inn on route 54 north of Hammondsport is good value no-frills eatery on the Keuka Lake waterfront.
     
• A local eating institution on routes 5 & 20 in Waterloo is Mac’s Drive-In, a place for a cheap, quick bite, open Memorial Day-Labor Day. 
        
  2011 Travel Update: Revisiting after two years, I was amazed that new wineries continue to crop up. How can they be economically viable? They certainly lack marketing muscle and scale. Questioning local people in the know, it seems that most of these small wineries depend on drop-in trade from tourists, rather than from sales to retailers and restaurants. (Since there already are a few dozen longer-established wineries to choose from when putting together a tasting itinerary, I suspect that a consolidation may be in the offing eventually.)
  
  An interesting and intelligent development has been wine tour passports. On Keuka Lake, for example, 8 wineries participate. For a $10 fee (plus tax), the Keuka passport offers free tastings at those wineries that charge for them ($2 to $5 is typical), as well as discounts on purchases of wine. Local restaurants and hotels also offer discounts of their own. It pays for itself in short order, and encourages the holder to visit many more wineries than he otherwise would. There's also another $10 card that focuses on the Seneca and Cayuga Lake wineries. (Neither of these cards is well-publicized. I got the Keuka card only because a person leading the tasting at one of the participating wineries brought it to my attention. I saw it on display at only one of the other seven wineries. Meanwhile, the card focusing on the Seneca and Cayuga wineries appears to be available only online. While it is advertised on a tourist map available in the area, by the time you get this map, it's too late to order the card online -- a curious approach to marketing.)

   
 Keuka Outlet trail  (from Keuka Lake toward Seneca Lake)

• The Keuka Outlet trail is an excellent biking and hiking option, running 7 miles from Penn Yan at Keuka Lake to Dresden at Seneca Lake. The trail is on the track bed of the Fall Brook Railroad (1884-1974) which, in turn, was built on the towpath of the old Crooked Lake Canal, active from 1833-1877. The gentle grade (a 270 foot descent over its length) makes it very easy to negotiate in either direction. Moreover, it is shady over almost its entire length, making it a relatively cool option even on warm summer days.
    
• Stretches of Keuka Outlet Creek, which runs alongside the trail, are suitable for kayaking and canoeing. Near the Penn Yan terminus is Birkett Mill, the world's largest producer of buckwheat products; here you can see how the creek was once channeled to power the mill, as well as remnants of the railroad and a bridge built from stone originally used for canal locks. Plans are afoot to extend the trail for the final mile between its current Dresden terminus to Seneca Lake.

     
 Just West of the Finger Lakes

• Letchworth State Park, west of the Finger Lakes proper, is a little-known scenic gem, noteworthy for its series of waterfalls. 
   
• Stony Brook State Park, a much smaller preserve east of Letchworth in Dansville, is another scenic wonder, offering a river gorge trail with 3 waterfalls (one of which is pictured below) along the route.
   
  
   
• Note that your admission ticket to one New York State park normally is good for entrance to any number of other parks on the same date.

 
  Buffalo-Rochester Region (including Niagara Falls)

• Niagara Falls itself is within an easy daytrip from the Finger Lakes.
   
• Old Fort Niagara stands where the Niagara River drains into Lake Ontario, and is a striking historic site.
   
• In Buffalo, the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site is the home where Roosevelt took the oath of office after the assassination of William McKinley in the same city.
   
• Enthusiasts for the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright can visit two of his projects, the Darwin Martin house in Buffalo and Graycliffs, Martin’s summer home on the shore of Lake Erie in nearby Derby, southwest of the city.
   
• Closer to the Finger Lakes, the Genesee Country Museum in Mumford is one of the outstanding museum villages of its type in North America.
   
• The city of Rochester is a short drive from the lakes. It has an imposing waterfall of its own downtown, where the Genesee River runs.
   
• The George Eastman House in Rochester combines the home of the Kodak founder with a museum of photography and camera technology.
   
• Near the Eastman House is the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, a fine small museum with an extensive program of free concerts.

 
  Lake Ontario Shoreline

• Sodus Bay with its huge marina is a postcard setting.
   
• At Chimney Bluffs State Park (free), on Lake Ontario east of Rochester, the cliffs have been sculpted by the elements into fantastic shapes, as you can see below.
  
  
   
• Continue farther east to Little Sodus Bay, near the town of Fair Haven, which is an equally picturesque maritime locale. Head north on Fancher Avenue for some sweet treats at the locally-famous Fly by Night Cookie Company (and Miniature Museum) run out of a local home.
   
• The Sterling Nature Center (free) in the town of Sterling has a wonderful lakefront setting and miles of trails. It is noteworthy for its resident bald eagles and ospreys, as well as its colony of roughly 60 pairs of breeding great blue herons in the spring and early summer.
    
• The city of Oswego is notable for Fort Ontario, which saw action in the War of 1812 and which housed European Jewish refugees after World War II, the H. Lee White Marine Museum, and several locks on the Oswego Canal, which connects Lake Ontario with the Erie Canal. Arrive at the right time and you can see boats being raised or lowered. Continue south into Fulton if you want to see two more locks up close.
   
• An enjoyable dining spot just west of town on route 89 is Rudy’s Lakeside Drive-In (open March-September). Cheap and tasty, with an emphasis on fried seafood, but offering much more. It draws big crowds, but service is very fast. Note that indoor seating is very limited, but there are ample picnic tables outside (some under a pavilion) at the edge of Lake Ontario.
   
• East of Oswego, turning north off route 104, is the Derby Hill Bird Observatory (free) where large numbers of migratory raptors (eagles, hawks and falcons) can be viewed in the spring as they move north along the coast of Lake Ontario. In any season it is a scenic place for a walk.
   
• Also on the lakeshore in the town of Mexico is Mexico Point Park (free) with ruins of earlier stone buildings on the site.
   
• For a real treat in season, look for a peach orchard on route 3 in the town of Mexico that sells sugar donut peaches, a small, oddly shaped variety. The red sugar donuts are much sweeter than their yellow counterparts.
   
• Visitors may be surprised to find that the Finger Lakes region has several pockets of Amish, and that their characteristic black horse-drawn buggies occasionally can be encountered on area roads.

 
  Utica-Cooperstown-Oneonta Region

• In Utica, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute (free) is a fine small museum of American art, with some exhibits in a Victorian home once owned by members of the founding family. Its most noteworthy holding is the four-painting allegorical cycle “The Voyage of Life” by Thomas Cole.
   
• Next door, at St. Volodymyr’s Ukrainian Catholic Church, ladies of the parish sell homemade pierogi (dumplings) and stuffed cabbage on Friday afternoon. While they sell primarily for takeout, they often can accommodate people who want to eat on site.
   
• Cooperstown is best known as the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. However, it also is worth a trip for the Fenimore Art Museum, the Farmers’ Museum and the summer Glimmerglass Opera.
   
• Outside Cooperstown, Brewery Ommegang makes award-winning Belgian-style beers in an imposing structure (see below) patterned after traditional farmhouse breweries in that country. Free tours and tastings are offered daily.
  
  
   
• On the outskirts of Oneonta on route 7 in Emmons/Davenport, the Brooks House of Bar-B-Q is a good stop for hearty, inexpensive eating. Chicken and pork ribs are the featured menu items.

  
To make hotel reservations in towns in the scenic Finger Lakes region of western New York state, please visit NYC-Hotels.com.


   We welcome your comments or suggestions about this Travel Report: