Splendidly sylvan Vermont is seemingly timeless, a tableaux of gently rolling hills, accessibly high mountains, serene pastures, dense woods, placid lakes, bubbling streams and quaint towns.
It’s the kind of a place, I suspect, where the iconic American painter, Norman Rockwell, would have felt at home.
Whenever I’ve driven through Vermont, I have never ceased to be amazed by its quietly beguiling landscape and have always been sorry I couldn’t linger longer and explore its nooks and crannies.
Being a recreational cyclist, I’ve cycled in Vermont several times, always discovering its simple charms on a guided bike tour. One summer, I signed up for a four-day inn-to-inn tour of the Shelburne/Lake Champlain district. I cycled about 45 kilometres a day, just enough to work up a satisfying sweat and discover a particularly picturesque portion of the Green Mountain state.
I was not disappointed by the pastoral countryside, framed by wooded mountains, bordered by expanses of wild flowers, cornfields and apple orchards and dotted with glinting ponds and tidy farms dominated by silver silos and herds of contentedly grazing cows.
From start to finish, the pace was leisurely, and I considered the trip an idyll rather than a race. Riding a Trek touring bike, I often pulled over to the shoulder of the road to admire exquisite vistas, breathe in the fragrance of newly-mown grass, clamber upon haystacks and watch bathers frolicking in the cool waters of Lake Champlain.
The people on our tour, mostly Americans, met in Shelburne’s Heart of the Village Inn, a charming Queen Anne Victorian residence listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fortified by a sumptuous breakfast, I set off on a cool, cloudy morning, a schematic map and typed directions in hand. Within an hour, the majestic Adirondacks across Lake Champlain in New York state came into view. I boarded a ferry boat for Essex, a rustic burg in New York brimming with antique shops, art galleries and pre-Civil War buildings.
After returning to Shelburne, I cycled to Charlotte, a somnolent village where I bought a sandwich and a cold drink for a planned picnic.
Coasting blissfully down a steep hill, I crossed a covered wooden bridge, one of the precious few in the vicinity, and found myself in a well-tended park with benches overlooking Lake Champlain. Following an enjoyable lunch and a chat with a fellow cyclist, I cycled back to Shelburne for the night. I dozed off in bed with a back issue of Vermont Life, a magazine which has a knack for distilling the essence of this state.
The next day was warm and sunny as I rode through Monkton, whose chief claim to fame is its association with Chester Arthur, the undistinguished 21st president of the United States who was born in the nearby village of Fairfield.
In the late afternoon, I reached the Strong House Inn in Vergennes. Like the inn in Shelburne, Strong House Inn is a redoubt of hospitality and fine dining. Using it as a base, I visited Button Bay, a secluded spot, and Kingsland Bay, a bucolic area on the edge of Otter Creek, Vermont’s longest river.
Early the next morning, I cycled to Middlebury, the epitome of a sedate New England town. In addition to Middlebury College, Middlebury is best known for its arts and crafts shops in the Frog Hollow district. I went into a few stores, admiring the items for sale, and then I dropped into Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor for a refreshing vanilla cone.
On my final day in Vermont, I cycled back to the starting point, Shelburne, in about one-and-a-half hours, a respectable enough time for a cyclist like myself.
Having driven back to Toronto, I asked myself whether it had been worth driving 1,356 kilometres for the sake of a cycling trip in Vermont. I knew the answer, of course. The long drive had been a small price to pay for the undimmed pleasure of cycling through the verdant hills and dales of Vermont.