Upstate New York
For a change, on the way back to Toronto we decided to go around the south side of Lake Ontario, through the Adirondacks and upstate New York. I’d made a couple of small visits to Syracuse while at university in Kingston, but never really looked around - and the lure of George Eastman House in Rochester (one of the world’s great collections of photography and motion pictures) was pretty compelling.
But the best discovery on the way would have to be Hemlock Hall in Blue Mountain Lake, NY; we stumbled onto this historic house at about 10pm while looking for accommodation (of any kind!), and Paul the host was so incredibly welcoming - he made us dinner, a gourmet breakfast, and gave us our choice of rooms (though he recommended the cabin by the brook where he’d come as a child!). Great little place!