Best New England Fall Foliage Travel Destinations Resource

Article and photo (2008 photo of Big Apple Farm, Wrentham, Mass.) by Eric H.

If you're overwhelmed on where to start when traveling the six New England states during the fall foliage season, we have a resource to make autumn trip planning easier. The VisitingNewEngland.com "Best New England Fall Foliage Travel Destinations, Vacations and Scenic Drives" offers tips on places we have been to and regard as scenic, fun and relevant autumn New England fall travel spots.

We cover a wide variety of New England fall foliage season information, including our favorite vacation destinations and hotel getaways, dining spots tailor-made for autumn, best leaf peeping spots, driving tours, hikes, day trips, apple picking and apple cider recommendations.

Realizing that you might have a limited amount of time to travel -- like, perhaps, a weekend -- we feel that our "New England Fall Travel Guide" acts as sort of a "greatest hits" of New England fall foliage season travel. Of course, New England offers so much to do in the autumn that we'll constantly update this section, as we experience more great spots in the fall.

To access the article, click on the link above.

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The Long and "Wining" Road in Connecticut

One of our Twitter followers, http://twitter.com/RuthieB2, just gave us a great autumn tip, stating the "Connecticut Wine Trail is a fantastic trip for a cool fall day."

The Connecticut Wine Trail takes visitors through 20 vineyards in some of Connecticut's most picturesque towns. This eastern and western Connecticut excursion offers award-winning wines. All wineries are members of the Connecticut Vineyard and Winery Association.

The wineries include:
Bishop's Orchards Winery and Farm Market, Guilford
Chamard Vineyards, Clinton
DiGrazia Vineyards, Brookfield
Gouveia Vineyards, Wallingford
Haight-Brown Vineyards. Litchfield
Heritage Trail Vineyards, Lisbon
Hopkins Vineyard, New Preston
Jerram Winery, New Hartford
Jonathan Edwards Winery, North Stonington
Jones Winery, Shelton
Land of Nod Winery, East Canaan
Maugle Sierra Vineyards, Ledyard
McLaughlin Vineyards, Sandy Hook
Miranda Vineyard, Goshen
Priam Vineyards, Colchester
Rosedale Farms & Vineyard, Simsbury
Sharpe Hill Vineyard, Pomfret
Stonington Vineyards, Stonington
Sunset Meadow Vineyards, Goshen
White Silo Winery, Sherman

For more information on to create your own wine tour, we recommend visiting the Connecticut Wine Trail Web Site.

Editor's note: If you have any fall tips, please email us at The Weekly New England Travel and Vacation Gazette. To access our New England travel tips and updates on Twitter, visit our New England Info page.

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The Vanilla Bean Cafe in Pomfret, CT, is Good for the Heart -- and Your Hearty Appetite

Article and photo by Eric H, at VisitingNewEngland.com

One of our favorite day trips is traveling to the postcard-picture perfect town of Pomfret, CT, enjoying the rolling country hills, shaded country roads, expansive traditional New England village green and dining at the special Vanilla Bean Cafe.

A charming, converted, renovated 1800s farmhouse, the Vanilla Bean Cafe will warm your heart and fill your hearty appetite with its great breakfasts, lunches and dinners in a casual, cozy setting. The dining experience perfectly complements the laid-back, relaxing feel of this area known as the "Quiet Corner" of northeastern Connecticut as it's almost like an indoor community village green where people come to meet over a cup of fresh coffee and delicious homemade meals. What's more, the Vanilla Bean becomes an entertainment spot on Saturday night with folk singers (some famous including past performances from Geoff Muldaur and Lori McKenna). With pleasant outdoor seating in the warmer weather and a quaint, dimly-lit "country" main dining room that includes a sofa, the Vanilla Bean is one of the most cozy restaurants we've been to in the New England region. It's like someone invited you into their living room.

The food is simply amazingly fresh, whether it be a muffin, mixed greens salad, fresh turkey sandwich, a pork dish with flavorful wild rice, savory beans and appropriate spices, huge hot dogs or the made-from-scratch carrot or chocolate cakes. You order at the counter where the service is always pleasant and then wait for your order in the dining room. The counter help gives you a huge playing card that the waitstaff uses to identify where to serve the food!

The Vanilla Bean Cafe is a perfect dining choice for the fall foliage season, to warm up on a cold winter's night, to revel in the laundry fresh smell of spring, or as part of a hot summer's day travel where you will be welcomed by a staff that truly values its customers -- and you get to sample some wonderful food, entertainment and ambiance, in return.

The Vanilla Bean Cafe, Corner of Routes 44, 169, and 197, Pomfret, CT., Tel. Tel (860-928-1562

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