Finger Lakes Weekend: Wine, Waterfalls, Villages, Trails & Lakes
You don’t need a week to fall in love with the Finger Lakes. Sometimes, two unhurried days are enough.
There is a particular kind of Friday afternoon when staying home suddenly seems like the wrong decision.
The weather looks promising. The car has gas. There are no reservations to keep, no complicated itinerary waiting on the kitchen counter. Just an open road and the possibility of being somewhere different before dinner.
In the Finger Lakes, that’s often all a weekend needs.
The temptation is to plan too much. Eleven lakes, dozens of villages, hundreds of wineries and breweries, waterfalls hidden in deep gorges, farm markets, museums, trails and restaurants can quickly turn a getaway into a checklist.
But the Finger Lakes are better experienced another way.
Pick a lake. Choose a village. Find a road you’ve never driven.
And leave some room for whatever you discover along the way.
Friday Evening: Find the Water
The best Finger Lakes weekends begin before Saturday morning.
Arrive late Friday afternoon, when the sunlight is beginning to stretch across the hills. Whether you’re approaching Cayuga, Seneca, Keuka, Canandaigua or Skaneateles, make the lake your first destination.
Don’t unpack immediately.
Go find the water.
Walk along a village waterfront. Sit on a bench. Find a dock or a quiet park. Watch sailboats make their way toward shore as the hills across the lake slowly darken.
The Finger Lakes have a way of changing pace in the evening. Day-trippers begin heading home. Boats return to their slips. Restaurants start filling. Porch lights come on.
This is a good night for a local restaurant, a glass of Finger Lakes wine and no particular schedule afterward.
Take the long way back.
Tomorrow can wait.
Saturday Morning: Coffee and a Village
Wake early enough to see the lake before the day gets busy.
Morning is when many Finger Lakes villages are at their best.
Walk for coffee instead of driving. Look at the old storefronts. Notice the houses tucked behind Main Street. Stop at the bakery you hadn’t planned to visit.
Places such as Skaneateles, Aurora, Hammondsport, Penn Yan and Naples are different enough that each offers its own version of a Finger Lakes morning.
That’s part of the pleasure.
The region isn’t one destination.
It’s dozens of small places connected by water, agriculture, history and winding country roads.
Before leaving town, wander into an independent shop or two. Pottery, books, locally made food, artwork or something completely unexpected often makes a better souvenir than anything purchased from a predetermined shopping list.
Then point the car toward the countryside.
Saturday Late Morning
Follow the Road, Not the Highway
This is where the weekend really begins.
Choose the smaller road.
Finger Lakes backroads climb through vineyards, descend toward lakes and pass barns, orchards, farm stands and weathered houses that have watched generations travel the same hills.
In autumn, crates of apples appear beside the road.
Later come pumpkins.
In summer, sweet corn and berries.
Spring brings green fields and roadside flowers.
Stop when something catches your attention.
A hand-painted FRESH CIDER sign is a perfectly legitimate reason to change the day’s plans.
So is an unexpected overlook.
The best Finger Lakes itinerary occasionally gets interrupted.
Saturday Afternoon: Wine Country
Eventually, those roads seem to lead toward vineyards.
Wine is inseparable from the modern identity of the Finger Lakes, but visiting wine country doesn’t have to mean racing from tasting room to tasting room.
Choose one or two.
Stay awhile.
Ask questions.
Look out the window.
Riesling may be the region’s calling card, but Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, sparkling wines and other varieties tell different parts of the Finger Lakes story.
And sometimes the most memorable part of a winery visit isn’t what’s poured into the glass.
It’s standing beside rows of vines and realizing that the lake below is part of the reason those grapes can grow here at all.
Landscape becomes agriculture.
Agriculture becomes wine.
Wine becomes part of the identity of a place.
Saturday Evening: Stay for Sunset
By late afternoon, stop traveling.
This is important.
There is always another winery, another waterfall and another village fifteen miles down the road.
Let it wait.
Find dinner somewhere close to the lake and give the evening back to the weekend.
Afterward, find an Adirondack chair, dock, porch or patch of shoreline.
Watch the sky.
On calm evenings the water becomes almost metallic, reflecting the last orange and pink light while the opposite shoreline slowly disappears into blue.
If there’s a firepit nearby, even better.
A Finger Lakes weekend should contain at least one period when absolutely nothing is scheduled.
Sunday Morning: Chase a Waterfall
Sunday belongs to the wild side of the Finger Lakes.
The glaciers that carved the lakes also left behind a landscape of steep hillsides, gorges and streams. Water has spent thousands of years finishing the job.
The result is one of the defining experiences of the region: waterfalls.
The famous gorge at Watkins Glen State Park deserves its reputation. So does towering Taughannock Falls State Park.
But some of the most rewarding places are smaller.
At Fillmore Glen State Park, trails follow a narrow gorge past waterfalls, stonework and forest. Elsewhere across the region, roadside cascades and smaller preserves reward travelers willing to get out of the car.
You don’t need to conquer the longest trail.
Walk far enough that traffic noise disappears.
That’s usually enough.
Sunday Afternoon: The Farm Stand Rule
There should be one rule governing the drive home:
If you see a farm stand, stop.
Maybe it’s apples.
Maybe sweet corn.
Maybe maple syrup, honey, cheese, jam, flowers or a pie that was never part of the weekend plan.
Buy something.
Not because you need it.
Because Monday morning is coming.
And tomorrow, when the suitcase is unpacked and the hiking shoes have dried, that jar of jam or bag of apples will still be sitting on the kitchen counter.
It will remind you that for two days you slowed down.
Don’t Try to See the Finger Lakes
This may be the most useful advice for planning a Finger Lakes weekend:
Don’t try to see the Finger Lakes.
You can’t.
Not in two days.
Probably not in two weeks.
Instead, see a piece of them.
One lake.
One waterfall.
One village.
One trail.
One vineyard.
One unexpected place where you pull the car over simply because the view is too good to keep driving.
Then come back.
Choose another lake.
Take another road.
Find another village.
That’s the secret of the Finger Lakes. The region rarely reveals itself all at once.
It gives you just enough to make you want another weekend.
Finger Lakes Weekend
Wine. Waterfalls. Villages. Trails. Lakes.
Five words could easily become an itinerary.
But perhaps the better idea is to use them as possibilities.
Pick three.
Leave room for the unexpected.
And somewhere between the first cup of coffee and the last view of the lake in the rearview mirror, you’ll probably understand why so many people keep coming back.
11 Lakes Magazine — Celebrating Life in the Finger Lakes.