Foliage & Fall Fun in the Finger Lakes
In mid-October my mom and dad came to visit us from Texas – to spend time with us of course, but also to enjoy the plentiful apple orchards of upstate New York, tour & taste at wineries around Keuka Lake in the gorgeous Finger Lakes region, catch a breath of cool autumn air, and glimpse some pretty, colorful fall foliage.
When they arrived on Friday night we dined at a quaint and cozy pub in Fairport called the Argyle Grill – steak salads, pecan-crusted chicken with cranberry chutney, sun-dried tomato risotto, and slow-cooked ribs. This place was great and we’d highly recommend it to any visitors in the future!
On Saturday morning we hit up the public market to ogle the pumpkins, gourds, and Indian corn. We took home some fresh flowers, a stalk of Brussel sprouts, baskets of fresh-picked apples and pears, and shared one the world’s absolute best and totally irresistible fresh, hot apple cider donuts, made right at the market. They’re unbelievable. If you ever visit Rochester, you must give them a try! Then we drove south to the Bristol Mountain Ski Resort for a fall foliage sky ride on the ski lift, which was chilly, but also very beautiful and a lot of fun. Realizing we were only 15 minutes from the awesome little village of Naples, we decided to stop for lunch at Roots Cafe, an incredible restaurant with excellent fresh, local fare, only a handful of tables inside, and a cozy little porch overlooking a stunning vineyard – located on the main drag in the village next to the Inspire Moore winery and across the street from a stand selling homemade concord grape pies (which are also a completely delicious local treat worth indulging in). With extra time on our hands after lunch and Inspire Moore, we stopped in at the Hazlitt Red Cat Cellars and Winery in Naples for a tasting. We each took home a couple bottles of our favorite wines just as the cold rain began to fall. We headed back to Rochester and straight to a cozy bookstore in Pittsford for some book-browsing and pumpkin spice lattes before enjoying a wonderful production of The Last Five Years that Ted was stage managing and audio engineering.
Oh, man I adored those flowers sitting on our coffee table for the rest of the week, and doesn’t that vineyard have the most breathtaking view for lunch?
If you find yourself in upstate New York, don’t pass on Naples! You’ll want to make sure you visit Roots Cafe and Hazlitt Winery, get a grape pie at Monica’s Pies, and stay at the Mountain Horse Farm B&B where we spent Christmas last year. The Rochester Public Market is always one of our favorite hang-outs, and Bristol Mountain is lovely in the fall (and I’m sure the winter too, if you’re a skier).
