Burlington, Vermont

A weekend roadtrip to Burlington, Vermont leaving from our home base in New Hampshire. Next stop was at Green Mountain Coffee in Waterbury, Vermont.  There is a coffee shop and café but the big attraction is the huge variet of K-cup coffee types on sale.  If you are a coffee drinker and use the Keurig type machine there will be a flavor to your liking here.

On the way we made a slight detour to stop at the Great Vermont Corn Maze.

From coffee to ice cream; our next stop was Ben & Jerry’s a famous ice cream manufacturer here in the states who got their start in Vermont. There are long lines in the summer and fall for their factory tour and ice cream bar.

If you think you want to skip the tour you can get the same ice cream in any number of dipping shops in the area without the crowds. Our hotel for the night was the Days Inn in Colchester, Burlington.

The Church Street Market Place in downtown Burlington is a pedestrian only street lined with shops, cafés and restaurants.

During the next two days we ate at the restaurants Church & Main and Halvorson’s Upstreet Café.  Both establishments had great food and great people watching.  Halvorson’s had outdoor seating on the street that reminded me of European café culture.

I will list just some of the shops on the street that we visited.  Crow Bookshop had a nice selection of both new and used books.  Not that expansive but a nice little shop.  Saratoga Olive Oil Company was fantastic! they had a huge selection of flavored high quality olive oils and assorted artisan salts.  You get a small plate and some cut up cubes of bread and the olive oils are in dispensers so that you can sample each type.  When you find one you like you can purchase a bottle of that flavor.  Earth Prime Comics is a comics and SciFi shop.  Bruegger’s Bagels is a great spot for breakfast with great breakfast sandwiches. A favorite store is Ten Thousand Villages.  This store, one of a chain throughout the country, sells artisan craft items from third world countries that have difficulty finding a market for their goods.  A good cause and some wonderful gift items.

The Echo Center for Lake Champlain is a wonderful hands on children’s museum.  I will let Alex give the review “Papa, this place is awesome!” The hands on exhibits and interactive displays are great for younger children.

There are many more things to see and do in the area that we will return for such as a Cabot Creamery cheese tour and Lake Champlain cruise.  A nice extension would be to cross over into New York and travel down the western shore of the lake to Fort Ticonderoga or the Lake George area.

I have to mention the restaurant we stopped at on the drive back to New Hampshire.  This is one of reasons I like my Yelp app so much.  We were nearing the Vermont New Hampshire border and wanted to find a place to eat.  We try to avoid fast food or chain restaurants whenever possible so yelp pointed us to a Korean restaurant in Lebanon, New Hampshire.  Yama turned out to be a hidden gem.  Who would expect authenic korean food in rural New Hampshire, but it was fantastic.   Fresh soft shelled crab and squid and bountiful noodle soup and stir fry dishes.

A summary of a short stay in Burlington that you could easily turn into a multi day itinerary.