You need five days for a visit
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Allow yourself five days in Cooperstown to take in the museums, visit a cider mill, and skim a canoe across the lustrous nine-mile-long Otsego Lake that James Fenimore Cooper dubbed Glimmerglass in his most famous book, “The Last of the Mohicans.”
Cooper’s classic is a touchstone for festivals, art museums and state parks. Most notable is the Glimmerglass Festival, featuring opera performances and concerts in July and August.
The Fenimore Art Museum (www.FenimoreArt Museum.org) overlooks the lake. The museum, open April through December, features a renowned collection of Native American and folk art.
Ready for some sunlight? Grab an ice cream and stroll the Victorian neighborhoods that etch the hills overlooking Otsego Lake. Brimming with mansions, this lake town is in a class with Lake Arrowhead or Lake Geneva near Chicago.
To appreciate the lake, bike to the Blue Mingo Grill two miles from town. On its lakeside patio, you can dip your toes in the water as you munch from a menu that features chowder, crab cakes and lobster rolls (mine came heaped with meat). Inside, we spotted baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr. at a table.
In the afternoon, cruise the lake in a two-person canoe ($30) or a pontoon boat ($90) from the rental shop next door at Sam Smith’s Boat Rentals [(605) 547-258]. The Glimmerglass Queen (www.cooperstownlakefront hotel.com) tour boat also offers daily cruises from the Lake Front Hotel in town.
Thirsty? On Main Street, the handsome Cooperstown
Distillery (www.coopers towndistillery.com) hosts complimentary tastings of Glimmerglass vodka and Fenimore gin. But the town’s real hot spot is the Brewery Ommegang (www.omme gang.com) on a lively 150-acre former hop farm.
In summer, the Belgianthemed farm stages tours and tastings, plus concerts with such artists as Lyle Lovett and Bonnie Raitt. In October and December, Ommegang holds seasonal festivities with wagon rides and special family events.
Upstate New York is laidback and restful, so time slips through your fingers here. Be sure to allow for a stop at Otesaga Resort Hotel, where the legends of baseball reside during the Hall of Fame induction celebration, usually the last Sunday in July. You can’t miss it: As grand as a castle, the Otesaga features rows of rocking chairs on a glorious back veranda.
Or leave an afternoon free to lug a book and a bottle of the local brew to a nearby picnic spot. Perhaps even partake from a passage from Cooper’s classic:
“Tis a strange calling,” muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, “to go through life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may happen to come out of other men’s throats.”