The "other" New York

Sunday morning, while other people were still sleeping we left the house at 7 am with a reduced amount of luggage to catch a train to Uptown and the Avis rental car office. I was a little nervous, because of the drive out of Manhattan, but cleverly we had booked the car on a Sunday morning and traffic out of town was light.We got a Mazda 3 Sedan, nicely equipped with a lot if extras (like a push button, a rear camera, lights in the mirrors showing passing cars, etc.). We dove to the Northeast, through New Jersey and even a little distance through Pennsylvania, and soon after found ourselves in another world: woods everywhere, partly at the peak of fall foilage, gentle hills, only few small towns.

First longer stop we made was at the Newtown Battlefield, where one big battle during the War of Independence in 1779 took place. George Washington had sent troops to this region to drive out British loyalists and Iroquois indians, whose home is the Fingerlakes region. Great views, too, from the monument (pic) towards the Chemung River Valley.

Next, we bestowed honor to famous writer Mark Twain in Elmira. It was not that easy to find his study (sort of a gazebo) on the university campus - Elmire College is one of the oldest (originally exclusively female) colleges in the country, founded in 1825 - and the gravesite on the Woodlawn Cemetery. His wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, was born in Elmira and the couple and family members are burried here.

Corning - our final stop of the day - is known as the "America's Crystal City" and is proud of its historic "Gaffer District", the downtown area, named for the master glassblowers and known for more than a hundred unique shops, studios, galleries, and restaurants mostly in historic buildings.

All things glass, from innovative technology and science to the fashions and techniques in different times and places are found at the huge Corning Museum of Glass. 3,500 years of historic glass, glassblowing shows, demonstrations and an amazing glass shop (pic) - this museum was a full surprise in a small town like Corning! Especially liked the new expansion, all in white, with contemporary glasswork. The lady in black on the picture further down is made completely out of glass!





Originally, the Corning Glass Works (which moved to Corning from Brooklyn in 1868) produced ornamental glass objects on the grounds where today the museum complex is situated. The company employed many gaffers, glass cutters and designers and the produce was shipped out on a canal, through the lakes to the Erie Canal. Later, the company became Corning, Inc., and this, until today, is one of the world's leading innovators in industrial glass produce, glass science, ceramics science, and optical physics. In the quaint little town there are still a couple of glass studios and many glass artists left.

Wished we would have had more time for this unique museum, but after a 2-hour-tour, we had to head out to see historic downtown and to have a delicious dinner (steaks) at Gaffer Grill & Pub with the Finger Lakes tourism rep, Cindy, before we checked into our hotel. Never have had such a luxurious Radisson Hotel, with a spa, before. There we enjoyed a 1-hour-massage, courtesy of Finger Lakes Tourism. Physically relaxed, mentally tired, and, thirsty we walked back to Market Street, where we checked out the shops (which were of course, closed), found this funny sign and had a night cap at the bar of the local Marketstreet Brewing Company - one of many microbreweries in the area.

This morning,unfortunately, the first day with cloudy skies, we started after a full hotel breakfast with another fantastic Museum: the Rockwell Museum, which has nothing to do with the famous illustrator, but was founded by a local couple of this name. The museum boasts their world-class collection of Western and contemporary Native American Art, Remingtons, Russels, Bierstadts, etc., in the beautiful historic City Hall/Fire House building.






Out we drove afterwards, to the Finger Lakes, but that will be a "another story". Too tired today,,,