Our last day on vacation. When I was researching places to stop on the way home from the East Coast, I saw that there was an Amsterdam in Montgomery County, New York State.….and then Rotterdam as well, and other Dutch names. They are named after cities in Netherlands. Cool!! I said….”I want to go there!” So we planned to meet up with my sister Debbie and Hank for the last 2 nights of our holidays.
I knew that New York City used to be called New Amsterdam in the 17th century. Why? It was named after Holland’s largest city by Dutch settlers in 1624. The Dutch lost control of their colony when the British seized it in 1665, renaming it New York and instituting new laws. History that I did not know about.
Well…..as we drove into Amsterdam we entered in the downtown area and found so many abandoned old buildings and I was so disappointed. I googled it and it appears that a hurricane did some damage in the past, but also we found out it is just a very old City and they have done what so many cities do….they built out and not up. I see they now have a revitalization project ongoing for their city, so I hope that the downtown area will improve. It could be really quaint with shops and restaurants and entertainment, as they are right on the water.
Since it is 37 degrees, we decide to go for a drive and find some local wineries. The first one takes us up, up, up and we got some gorgeous views from the top of the mountain.
We found Hummingbird Hills Winery. It was in an old dairy barn and the couple who purchased it in 1998 (when it was quite run down) renovated and started making wine. Mostly they had fruit wines and some cooking wines. We made a few purchases – the cranberry wine was a nice one!
We then found Clover Pond Winery which was really lovely. They had a few nice whites and we purchased their 2022 Frontenac Blanc. The best was that it was nice and cool in the winery, and he put us by the window so it almost felt like we were on the patio. I really liked the design of the building, and when the owner came and chatted with us we found out he was a engineer and designed the building himself. It was worth the stop to Clover Pond!
We were hoping to eat dinner in Amsterdam, but since that was not happening we decided to go back to Schenectady. We found a nice Italian Restaurant – Cornells in Little Italy.
When we got back to Arrowhead Campground, Hank decided to try a few casts but with no success. It actually didn’t feel as hot sitting on the dock. We got a great sky view as well. Our 2 nights together was way too short. We chatted about going back for another weekend sometime, maybe to the Finger Lakes area (e.g. Watkins Glen Campground) and tour the wineries there.
Reminiscing about our 2 week vacation. We did a lot and we saw a lot. We spent time with good people. We met so many friendly and interesting people! On the way home we drove through some really pretty towns through New York State and often we were driving along the Erie Canal system. We were near the Finger Lake region which we know is really nice. It would be great to do a few more road trips to New York and Pennsylvania State and do some local camping. Looking forward to our next adventure!!!
Trip Summary
16 days
5 Provinces
4 States
Total of 4,306 kilometers (plus a few extra 100 km that we drove with our friends)
49 hours and 37 minutes of driving
Wineries visited – 4 (wished we went to more)
Breweries visited – lost count! lol
# of nights we tented it – 9
# of deer seen – lots!!
# of sharks – 1
# of whales – lots!!
# of days I ate seafood or fish – 14
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