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Ithaca The beautiful Cornell University campus and its gorges and Beebe Lake are not to be missed. Pick up a city or a campus map to avoid getting hopelessly lost. The Gorges. There are 110 waterfalls within
ten miles of downtown Ithaca. Cascadilla, Fall and Six Mile creeks slice
through the city, and Ithaca Falls plummets 150 feet near the Ithaca
High School campus. At the edge of town is Buttermilk Falls State
Park. Buttermilk Creek drops more than 500 feet through dramatic
rock formations in a series of cascades and rapids into a swimming hole
at the foot of the falls. Nearby, trails in Robert H. Treman State
Park wind through Enfield Glen for three miles, passing twelve
cascades, sink holes and 115-foot-high Lucifer Falls. Just up Cayuga
Lake is Taughannock Falls State Park, where the 215-foot-high
falls are higher than Niagara. All have swimming, picnic areas and
hiking trails. Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca. Home of the famed Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, the sanctuary has 200 acres and more than four miles of trails through woodlands and over swamps and ponds. Huge picture windows in the Lyman K. Stuart Observatory look onto a garden filled with bird feeders and a ten-acre pond abounding with wildlife. Chairs and telescopes are provided. Original works by renowned artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes are hung in the hallways, and the Crow's Nest Birding Shop has a large selection of bird-related items. (607) 254-2473. www.birds.cornell.edu.
Observatory open Monday-Thursday 8 to 5, Friday to 4, weekends 1 to 4.
Trails always open. Ithaca Farmers' Market, Steamboat Landing, Ithaca. Ithacans are justly proud of one of the more flourishing farmers' markets in the East, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2003. All items for sale are grown, baked or produced by vendors within a 30-mile radius. We’ve been particularly impressed with the juried crafts and the ethnic foods. Entertainers perform and a festival atmosphere prevails. The market in a pavilion at Steamboat Landing off Third Street on the Cayuga Lake Inlet every weekend from June through October, Saturdays in early spring and late fall. A downtown market is held Tuesdays from May-October in Dewitt Park, across from the Dewitt Mall. Cayuga Wine Trail. The only Northeastern city with a vineyard inside its limits is Ithaca. Six Mile Creek Vineyard, is nestled on the slope of a valley at 1551 Slaterville Road (Route 79). Picnic tables look across the vineyards and hills, a European-style setting for the sampling of chardonnays, rieslings, seyvals and such. Other wineries on the west side of Cayuga Lake, including Knapp, Hosmer, Swedish Hill and Cayuga Ridge, form the Cayuga Wine Trail. A special attraction for lunch and dinner is the fine Knapp Vineyards Restaurant. A welcome newcomer is the Sheldrake Point Vineyard & Café near the lake at Sheldrake Point. Museums and Galleries. Housed in a stunning eleven-story building designed by I.M. Pei, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University is one of the country's leading university art museums. The late Johnson Wax Co. chairman gave the building, best known for its Rockwell Galleries of Asian Art, nicely displayed on the fifth floor where wraparound windows offer awesome views in all directions and visitors can lose sight of the art for the scenery. Other notable collections are those of American art and decorative arts, including 200 pieces of Tiffany glass. Special exhibitions show its diversity and quality; we found one on “American Clothing: Identity in Mass Culture” to be of great interest. Other galleries are scattered about town and downtown. We were particularly impressed by the Gallery at 15 Steps and the State of the Art Gallery. Shopping. The Downtown Ithaca Commons, formed by closing a section of State Street to vehicular traffic, is a downtown pedestrian marketplace that works. Trees, landscaping, benches and sidewalk cafes provide a pleasant people place, and plenty of people seem to be around at all hours. The Thursday night Concerts on the Commons are popular in summer. Most of Ithaca's better stores are not in the suburban malls but here. Among our favorites is People's Pottery, particularly strong on jewelry. We loved the special cat show at Handwork, Ithaca's co-op crafts store – crafted cats in all forms from tea cozies to enamel pins to stained glass to a scare cat for the garden. Now You're Cooking offers hard-to-find gadgets, classic cookware and unusual accessories. All kinds of outdoor equipment and clothing are available at Wildware Outfitters. Check out the unusual women's fashions at Angelheart Designs and the men's apparel at Benjamin Peters. The Plantation offers tropical plants, home accessories and collectibles along with fine dinnerware and crystal. Alphabet Soup is a good children's store. Extra-Special Cornell Plantations, One Plantations Road, Ithaca. The arboretum, botanical garden and natural areas of Cornell University are collectively known as the Plantations. They total nearly 3,000 acres of woodlands, gorges, gardens and lakeside trails bordering the campus. We were quite unprepared for their size or their scope. The Robison York State herb garden, for instance, has sixteen theme beds and 400 species surrounded by antique and shrub roses. Nature lovers could spend hours here. A driving tour past sculptures, ponds, test gardens and tree collections (many of them marked as Cornell class gifts) gives a quick overview, but all the cyclists and walkers have the right idea. If time is short, at least take the self-guided walking tour around Beebe Lake. The Garden Gift Shop in the headquarters building offers all kinds of things from pressed-flower notepaper and magnets to floral glass window hangings. (607) 255-3020. Gardens open daily, dawn to dusk.
Free.
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