Ithaca is...

Ithaca in the summer is a dream—think shades and layers and textures of green as far as the eye can see. And Ithaca is gorges, yes, no one is going to dispute that, but Ithaca is also so much more. 

Ithaca is afternoon thunderstorms and evening fireflies. It’s waterfalls and lakes and swimming holes where the water is layered cold, and then warm, and then cold again, fed by icy streams and warmed by the sun. Ithaca is wineries and restaurants, farmers markets and honor system flower stands. It’s the car in front of you consistently driving 40 in a 55, because when there’s so much beauty around you, why rush? The driver’s hand makes lazy, floaty circles out the window (and also, come to think of it, they might be high). 

Ithaca is perfectly named businesses—Purity Ice Cream, Gimme Coffee—and it’s never the same as you left it; places you thought were institutions eventually shutter and are replaced with something new. (RIP Just a Taste). And yet there is a sameness and a consistency of spirit that remain. Anchored by its geographical features—the ancient gorges, the hills on three sides and the lake to the north—and characterized by its residents’ free-thinking, liberal spirit (nominated the most hippie town in New York), in a lot of ways, Ithaca will always be very much the same. Once you’ve been to Ithaca, you will want to go back, and when you do you will realize that it’s one of a few, very special places where you really can go home again.

Where we stayed, where we ate, and what we did are listed below.