At the center of New York State and approximately a five-hour drive from New York City, the scenic Finger Lakes point a beckoning digit to romantics, luring them to a getaway filled with picturesque country roads, wineries that welcome, small and intimate lodgings, and a world-class museum.
The latter is the Corning Museum of Glass — and if you never believed there was much to know about glass or its beauty in the hands of artists, you will be delightfully surprised here. Leave yourselves several hours to change that opinion — and learn to blow glass and take the souvenir you craft home.
Where to Stay in the Finger Lakes
- A romantic 1914 Italianate-style villa on Seneca Lake, Geneva on the Lake is an AAA Four-Diamond inn where each room is decorated differently and few children are seen or heard.
- Close to several award-winning wineries, the Aurora Inn is a 10-bedroom hotel that sits beside the largest of New York’s Finger Lakes, Cayuga.
- Mirbeau—an inn, spa and restaurant—brings Claude Monet’s Giverny garden to life in Skaneateles, a five-hour drive from New York City and a half hour south of Syracuse.
- Want to relive college days? Prestigious Cornell University is located on a lovely 745-acre campus in Ithaca. From a hilltop it overlooks 40-mile-long Cayuga Lake, largest of the Finger Lakes. Its Statler Hotel is staffed by students from the university's School of Hotel Administration.
If you don't feel like driving quite as far and think there's nothing more romantic than catching a baseball game together, you can always make Cooperstown your weekend getaway destination. It's about an hour closer to New York City than the Finger Lakes.
