A friend who is heading to New York’s Hudson Valley in the fall recently asked me for some travel tips. As it’s one of my favourite places and I’ve been there many times, I’m happy to oblige! These are listed in roughly the order you’ll encounter them if you’re driving south from Ottawa.
Olana
Over about 20 years, from the early 1870s to the early 1890s, this one-of-a-kind house evolved—there’s really no other word for it—on a hill near Hudson, New York. Landscape artist Frederic Church and his wife Isabel had fallen in love with Middle Eastern architecture during a trip to the Middle East just before they commissioned celebrity architect Calvert Vaux to design Olana. As a result, the house is replete with soaring arches, Persian carpets and colourful ceramics. The Churches kept tinkering with and adding onto the house until it became a spectacular, rambling place, filled with pieces ranging from Mexican folk art and Asian furniture to Old Masters paintings.
Olana commands a spectacular view of the Hudson Valley. Photo by Laura Byrne Paquet.
Rhinebeck
This pretty village is home to all sorts of cute boutiques and charming cafés. There’s also the Beekman Arms, which oozes history and claims to be the oldest continuously operating inn in America. (For all that, I’m more partial to its sister property down the street, the Delmater House, designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. He’s the 19th-century architect I waxed on about in a post about Lyndhurst, one of my other fave places in the Hudson Valley.) If self-actualization is your bag, there’s also the Omega Institute, a yoga-and-granola educational retreat centre.
The Beekman Arms in Rhinebeck dates back to the 1760s. Photo by Laura Byrne Paquet.
Hyde Park
For a small place, Hyde Park has a surprising number of don’t-miss attractions. For history buffs, there’s a collection of sites associated with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, including Springwood (the country home where FDR came to relax and recharge while leading the U.S. through the tumult of the Great Depression and the Second World War), the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, and Val-Kill (the home where Eleanor came to get away from FDR). Not far away at one of the country’s leading chef schools, the Culinary Institute of America, you can sample student efforts at separate restaurants focusing on American, French or Italian cuisine (reserve as far in advance as you can), or drop into the Apple Pie Bakery Café for baked goods.
Springwood preserves the life and times of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Flickr/Creative Commons photo by Randy OHC.
Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park
This linear park runs 42.2km (26.2 miles) from the Croton Dam in Cortlandt to Yonkers, largely along the shore of the Hudson River. The underground aqueduct was a huge 19th-century public works project to bring fresh water to New York City. Today, you can hike along much of the gentle ridge, which snakes through woods and backyards, schoolyards and villages. You’ll constantly wonder whether you’re trespassing or lost, but you’ll never be bored. When I hiked it years ago, I encountered two wild deer near an apartment complex in Yonkers (I was sure they were lawn ornaments, until they moved), ducked under someone’s laundry line in Sleepy Hollow (yes, there really is a village called Sleepy Hollow) and fretted that the sketchy-looking guy walking toward me in Rockefeller State Park Preserve was an escapee from nearby Sing Sing prison (as far as I can tell, he wasn’t). One of the great advantages of the Old Croton trail is that you are rarely far from the Hudson Line of the Metro-North Railroad, in case you get tired and want to hop the train to your next destination. I gave in to exhaustion at Scarborough, about 10km from the end of the trail.
The Old Croton Aqueduct trail includes lots of woodsy stretches. Flickr/Creative Commons photo by Kristine Paulus.
Tarrytown
Right on the Old Croton Aqueduct trail, Tarrytown is another scenic riverside town that’s well worth a visit. Like Rhinebeck, it’s full of nice shops and restaurants. (Try the chicken club sandwich with applewood-smoked bacon and avocado aioli at the Sweet Grass Grill, a sleek-yet-casual spot.) It’s home to the aforementioned Lyndhurst historic mansion, and just south of town in Irvington is Sunnyside, the one-time home of author Washington Irving. And you can choose from two opulent hotels: the sprawling Tarrytown House Estate, which draws a lot of weddings and special events, and the more intimate Castle Hotel and Spa. The latter was my family’s favourite when we visited last summer; the warm welcome starts at check-in, which you do in a luxurious lounge while sipping champagne. It ain’t cheap, but it does feel special.
The Castle Hotel and Spa lets you feel like you’re a 19th-century magnate–at least for the night. Photo by Laura Byrne Paquet.
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If you go
Here are a few more sites to inspire your Hudson Valley travels.
- Historic Hudson Valley manages several historic sites, including Sunnyside and a Rockefeller mansion, Kykuit.
- Vintage Hudson Valley promotes a number of hotels, restaurants and spas in the region, including Tarrytown House Estate, and the Castle Hotel and Spa.
- New York State Tourism offers lots of other ideas.
Disclaimer: I travelled to Delamater House, Tarrytown House Estate, and the Castle Hotel and Spa, as a guest of the properties, none of which reviewed or approved this post.