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After Boston, we made our way into southern New Hampshire and Vermont. The weather wasn’t cooperating in NH, so we moved into Vermont and stayed in the town of Manchester in southern Vermont. The town is surrounded by the Green Mountains (and also has a portion of the Appalachian Trail which runs from Georgia to Maine). It’s a quaint little town covered with outlet and factory stores for everything from the Gap to Escada. You’d never know it though as all are scattered throughout the village in colonial style buildings. On the way, we found a quaint old covered bridge (just one of over 100 found in Vermont!) We have Vermont to be just beautiful. The mountains and charm of the small towns are just great.
For our first day, we drove through the quaint town of Grafton (for the award winning Vermont cheddar cheese) and watched and learned about the cheese making process. This little village is preserved in time – literally. A foundation owns the village and keep it in it’s historic and preserved state. Quite endearing. We spent our late afternoon hiking the Appalachian Trail !! Okay, so we only hiked 5 miles (okay, 2.5 each way) of the 2,175 mile trail that runs from Georgia to Maine, but hey we had limited time late in the day! It is a beautiful trail and we could only envision how beautiful it would be at the peak of fall colors – and all of Vermont for that matter.
We then moved to northern Vermont, of course while hitting a few key breweries along the way. We chose to base ourselves in Burlington which is a pretty college town located onLake Champlain in NW Vermont. We also spent a day in Stowe (the real life Von Trapp family built a lodge here) and spent our morning hiking to the Pinnacle for great views of the surrounding areas and the afternoon checking out the shops including the local chocolatier and local brewpubs. Great little village once again. All of these little villages have little or no chains to speak of which is so refreshing (with maybe an exception of a Dunkin Donuts in some larger towns as they seem to reign in New England). There is a lot of focus on supporting the small business and local farmers and artisans. Very nice to see.
We next head over to northern New Hampshire!
P.S.
Brewers of note: (in case you are ever in the area)
1) Otter Creek – in Middlebury in between Manchester and Burlington. Good variety of beers and a great brewery tour. Happens to be a very old covered bridge just behind the brewery which was fun to see as well.
2) The Alchemist – brewpub with great food and great vibe in Waterbury. You can’t buy there beer as none is bottled, but they certainly were great with dinner!
3) Magic Hat – quirky little brewery in Burlington with an owner and beer lover dedicated to the institution of craft brewing. Most interesting beer was the “Thumbsucker” which is a very high alcohol content beer that is fermented for three years in casks previously used for Wild Turkey. You get the picture.
4) Rock Art – very small brewery with all of four employees in Middleborough just north of Stowe. Funniest brewery tour ever, but good hoppy beer that Scott enjoys.
5) American Flatbread – a restaurant with great wood-fired pizzas and a brewery on site. Besides their great home brews, their selection of other international and domestic selections is most impressive!
Peeve of the day: What can be more annoying than getting your tab at a nice local restaurant and seeing the tipping guide at the bottom listed with a range from 18% to 25%. I’m sorry, but what happened to 15-20% tipping range. Not that we don’t tip very well when warranted, but please, let’s not change the standard.
previous travel blog entry
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