on location: northeast � randy mink

26 October 2009 LeisureGroupTravel.com

For travelers seeking simple pleas-ures and hometown comforts, Ver-

mont is as inviting as a stack of warmfluffy pancakes drenched in maplesyrup, the “real” stuff found in every giftshop and general store in the Green

Mountain State. Pure maple is the onlykind I buy and always brings back sweetmemories of this delicious slice of NewEngland.

With tour operators from aroundthe country, I recently sampled a smor-

gasbord of attractions on awhirlwind fam sponsored byVermont Tourism Network.

Our favorite stops werefood stores that double astourist attractions. Groups likenothing better than eating andshopping, so such places asVermont Country Store, ColdHollow Cider Mill, Ben &Jerry’s, Morse Farm MapleSugarworks and CabotCreamery are smart choices foritinerary planners. Many stores

offer abundant free samples in hopes ofselling their Vermont-made goodies tothe nibblers and noshers who comethrough their doors. Most have demon-strations, videos, tours or exhibits thatshow how the foods are made.

Filling up on free cheese, crackers,cookies and candy, however, means thatoverzealous grazers may not be hungryat meal times, so tour members shouldbe advised to pace themselves.

Famous for cows, red barns, whitechurch steeples and glorious fall foliage,Vermont has the image of being old-fashioned and out of the mainstream, arural backwater with quaint villages andMain Street charm. That’s fine withme. I bought a Vermont T-shirt thatsays “What happens here, stays here.But nothing ever really happens.”

Crowd-pleasing attractions satisfy the appetites and curiosity of groupstouring the state’scozy villages andrural hamlets

Sampling

Flaming fall foliage dapples the postcard-perfect Vermont countryside.

Harvest-season visitors to Billings Farm &

Museum examine a display of apple varieties.

Vermont

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Yet the growth in niche farming en-terprises and artisan products has putVermont on the cutting edge of culinarytrends. And the state is at the forefrontof social thought, green technology andcivilized living in general. Roadside bill-boards have been banned since 1969.

In Burlington, Vermont’s largest city(pop. 39,000), our group made a beelineto the Lake Champlain Chocolatesfactory store. We had just eaten break-fast, but that didn’t stop us from sam-pling the freshly made, all-natural,preservative-free truffles produced formore than two decades and sold na-tionwide by this artisan chocolatier. Fla-vors range from the signature maplecrunch and evergreen mint to the moreunusual molé, lemon ginger and rasp-berry pink peppercorn. Tour memberscan watch the gourmet confectionsmade before their eyes, view the “frombean to chocolate to you” video and saveon factory seconds. The company alsohas a store at Church Street Market-place, a lively pedestrian mall in down-town Burlington.

Four cruise operators in Burlingtonoffer excursions on Lake Champlain,

the nation’s sixth largest lake (after thefive Great Lakes). The Spirit of EthanAllen III, the largest tour boat, hassightseeing, lunch and dinner cruises.

Groups with culinary interests maywant to consider cooking classes at TheEssex, Vermont’s Culinary Resort &Spa. Formerly known as The Inn atEssex, the Burlington-area resort hostsclasses in partnership with the NewEngland Culinary Institute.

South of Burlington is an attractionthat merits a half day. Shelburne Mu-seum, spread across 45 bucolic acres,houses an eclectic collection of Amer-icana in 39 exhibition buildings, manyof them historic structures trans-planted from other locations. Perhapsmost impressive is the 220-foot luxurysteamboat Ticonderoga, which onceplied Lake Champlain. It was movedhere in the 1950s on a specially builtrailroad track.

Just the thought of visiting DakinFarm, the name of a store in Ferris-burgh, makes me drool. They’re famousfor hams and bacon smoked over smol-dering corn cobs and cured with a touchof maple syrup. Besides sampling themeats, cheeses, mustards and syrups,visitors can see workers glazing thehams, tour the smokehouse and syrupcannery, and try “sugar-on-snow,” amixture of maple syrup and crunchysnow. Don’t leave without posing out-side by a larger-than-life jug of DakinFarm maple syrup.

Our group also satisfied its sweettooth while learning about the syrup-making process at New England MapleMuseum in Pittsford, which has thelargest collection of maple sugaring arti-facts anywhere, and Morse Farm MapleSugarworks in Montpelier, the capitalof Vermont.

The Waterbury area in Central Ver-mont makes a good base of operations

for visits to destination stores that offertours and generous tastings. At ColdHollow Cider Mill, New England’s

Pancakes with Dakin Farm maple

syrup taste as good as they look.

Shelburne Museum displays this

1871 Lake Champlain lighthouse.

Shelb

urne

Mus

eum

LeisureGroupTravel.com October 2009 27

largest producer of apple cider, groupscan see the cider press in operation dur-ing the fall production season. The storegets 300,000 visitors a year and as manyas 25 buses a day. It’s hard to leave ColdHollow without getting a cider donutfor the road.

Just down Waterbury-Stowe Road(Route 100, the most traveled stretch ofroad in the state) is Ben & Jerry’s IceCream Factory, one of Vermont’s sig-nature attractions. Looking through awindow onto the factory floor, we sawthem making Brownie ChocolateChunk and Cinnamon Bun. After the30-minute tour, which explains howchildhood friends Ben Cohen and JerryGreenfield turned a $5 correspondencecourse in ice cream making into aglobal phenomenon, guests sample theflavor of the day.

Cabot Creamery, which claims tomake the “World’s Best Cheddar,” hasan annex store on Route 100 betweenCold Hollow and Ben & Jerry’s.Groups can see how cheddar is madeon the factory tour in Cabot.

The 1875 train station in Waterburyis home to the visitor center of GreenMountain Coffee. Through exhibitsand videos, groups can view the coffee-making process from “tree to cup.” Cof-fee samplings for groups ($2 perperson) include a roasting demonstra-tion and packet of coffee.

In the idyllic town of Woodstock isBillings Farm & Museum, a modeldairy farm that dates back to 1871.Groups can see the Jersey cows, viewthe afternoon milking operation, tourthe 1890 farmhouse and have ice cream.The first-rate attraction operates inpartnership with the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park,where mansion and garden tours areavailable.

Vermont is all about nostalgia, so theOrton family’s Vermont Country Store

on location: northeast �

28 October 2009 LeisureGroupTravel.com

in Weston enchanted me and otherBaby Boomers in our group. In additionto sampling jellies, cookies and sausage,we found many reminders of our child-hood. The store (“Purveyors of thePractical and Hard-to-Find”) sellseverything from Lamb Chop puppetsand Bosco chocolate syrup to gumball-filled hula hoops and Fizzies flavoredtablets (awful-tasting stuff I used toplop into a glass of water for an instantsoft drink). Other discoveries includeflutophones, bike horns (the kind yousqueeze) and long-forgotten brands ofcosmetics, soaps and shampoos.

In addition to visiting scenic, histor-ical and retail attractions, groups can geta glimpse at little Vermont’s industrialmight. In a former marble mill in Proc-tor, just north of Rutland, the VermontMarble Museum offers a 12-minutemovie and more than 100 exhibits thatshed light on the marble industry. TheHall of Presidents features marble bustsof U.S. presidents. Visitors also seecarvers at work, chipping and sandingaway. The quarry itself, still being mined,is a short walk or bus ride away. Items inthe gift shop range from cheese trays androlling pins to chess sets and burial urns.

Barre, near Monteplier, is the “Gran-ite Capital of the World.” Groups atRock of Ages can tour the factory, visitthe quarry and sandblast their own sou-venir at North America’s largest makerof cemetery markers.

Granite and marble seem to sym-bolize the bedrock values and solidYankee traditions of Vermont, a cozyplace that charms visitors with its senseof community and Norman Rockwellsimplicity. Change comes slowly toVermont, and that’s a good thing. LGT

PLAN IT!Vermont Tourism Network:802-863-1122, vermonttourismnetwork.travel

Vermont Department ofTourism: 800-837-6668, vermontvacation.com

LeisureGroupTravel.com October 2009 29

on our radar: northeast �

MARYLANDThe National Aquarium in Balti-

more, one of Maryland’s most populargroup travel attractions, recently up-dated its dolphin show and introduced a jellies exhibit. Our Ocean Planet: TheNew Dolphin Show explores dolphins’intelligence, agility and power throughnew dynamic behaviors such as under-water flips and favorites like verticalspins. The aquarium’s sixth dolphinshow is the first to have a strong globalmessage about protecting the environ-ment and the connections between hu-mans and animals. Jellies Invasions:Oceans Out of Balance examines thesetranslucent creatures and the impactocean health has on their success. Theexhibit features as many as nine differ-ent species and shows how they arechanging the balance of the earth’saquatic ecosystems. (aqua.org)

MASSACHUSETTSThe Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

(MFA), is undergoing a building projectthat, when completed in late 2010, willhave increased its space by 28 percent.For the first time since the museum’sfounding in 1870, the art of North,Central, and South America will be pre-sented together in its own space, theAmerican Wing. The MFA has approxi-mately 15,500 objects in its Americancollection and approximately 5,000 ofthem, or 30 percent, will be on viewwhen the new wing opens. This is morethan double the number of works previ-ously on view. The American Wing’sfour levels of galleries will be arrangedchronologically: prehistoric NativeAmerican and pre-Columbian collec-tions on the first level, the Colonial pe-riod on the second level, the 19thcentury on the third level, and 20th cen-

tury works in all media on the top level.Completed components of the buildingproject include the renovation of theHuntington Avenue entrance on the Av-enue of the Arts, opened in April 2009,and the opening in June 2008 of boththe State Street Corporation FenwayEntrance and the Jean S. and Frederic A.Sharf Visitor Center. (617-267-9300,mfa.org)

NEW YORKLincoln Center plans to open its new

visitors center, The Atrium at LincolnCenter, on Nov. 12. Located adjacentto the performing arts center, the newspace, designed as an urban arts oasis,provides increased access to the iconiccampus and a vibrant neighborhoodgathering place. And for the first timein Lincoln Center’s history, the box office will offer day-of discount ticketsto performances across the campus.The visitors center is part of an overall$1.2-billion development project tomodernize and open up the 16-acrecampus and a key element in LincolnCenter’s 50th anniversary year.The Atrium at Lincoln Center will

feature free performances on Thursdaynights (from dance and jazz to classicaland opera), informal dining, lush 21-foot-high vertical gardens, a floor-to-ceiling fountain and dynamic mediawall with visitor and performance information. The visitors center is alsoa new departure point for tours of thecampus. In addition to the Atrium’snew amenities, resident organizationslike the New York City Ballet, NewYork City Opera, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts offer exciting seasonswith new commissions and special opportunities and discounts for groupsduring the anniversary celebration.(lincolncenter.org)

LGT/09LGT/09LGT/09

Only Hot Springs gives you luxury and excitement like this – from sunup to well after the sun goes down. Bring your group to the South’s famous Spa City, home of historic Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs National Park. Hit the jackpot at Oaklawn Racing and Gaming now with an all-new gaming center. Shop for art and charming gifts in one-of-a-kind boutiques. Explore all the glories of nature at Garvan Woodland Gardens. Enjoy all of this and a whole lot more in America’s First Resort.

For a free Group Tour Planner, call 1-800-922-6478 or visit www.hotsprings.org.

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