What Odysseus Missed Out on for All those Years

From hiking the trails to swimming by the gorges and from wine tasting to great art exhibits Ithaca has an impressive variety of attractions for a city of its size. If you are going to Ithaca during the summer or spring and you can only spend the weekend you should probably check out the many gorges around town. (For better or worse, "Ithaca is Gorges" has become the city's touristic slogan.) If you are visiting during the fall, driving around the Cayuga Lake and stopping at the wineries that surround it is a great option. Winter...well...is pretty cold in Ithaca, but the town has an intense cultural life, fueled mainly by Cornell University and by Ithaca College, which keeps its residents' souls from freezing.

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It is probably a good idea to have a car while in Ithaca, as many of the attractions are in the outskirts of town. Public buses don't run very late or that frequently, but are reliable. Taxis are somewhat of a shot in the dark since the quality of your ride really depends on your driver. Nowadays the taxi company in Ithaca is a monopoly so service has become steadily worse. If you don't mind the grouchy attitude it costs about ten dollars to cross town (for one person).

Besides having the best restaurant location in town, Simeons also has great food and an excellent beer list. The early 20th century decor is elegant without being oppressive, so don't worry about going there in a t-shirt and jeans. You don't really need a reservation, but the place fills up on weekends.

Moosewood is hailed by many as the first vegetarian restaurant ever. Part of its popularity has also been derived from the very succesful homonymous vegetarian cookbooks that, ironically, were written by one of the original owners after a feud with the other partners. In any case, the food is great and the restaurant is very well located. If you are not a vegetarian, however, be warned that the stereotypes that equate vegetarian eating with healthy eating do not apply. The food is delicious but often not what you would want to eat if on a diet. The bartenders also serve great drinks.

A few miles out of town, the Lindsay-Parsons Biodiversity Preserve offers a great venue for hikes and is a preferred site for bird watchers. If the word hike makes you shiver and feel faint (my case) rest assured: it is not an arduous walk and the beauty of the location is really worth it. Some say it's even worth going to when its covered in snow (but that was too much for my frail nerves to test.) As the name indicates, the site is also known for the diversity of specimens it contains (hence the bird watchers) and has been used frequently for biological studies.

For directions check

http://www.fllt.org/preserveDirections.html#lindsay

Located on the Cornell campus, the Herbert Johnson Museum of Art often surprises visitors. Designed by Chinese-born architect I. M. Pei (the same one who created the Louvre's glass pyramid), the building looks completely alien to the 19th century campus, resembles an overturned chair and, nevertheless, manages to be beautiful and to fit gracefully into the setting.
The Museum houses a permanent collection that includes a wide variety of works from Antiquity to our times. Its temporary exhibitions are usually intriguing and have recently included shows by earth artist Andy Goldsworthy, an exhibition of Modernist Cuban painters, and a powerful set of works by African-American artists since the 1960s. The Museum's forte is its collection of Asian art, which is located on the 5th floor, from where one can also appreciate one of the most spectacular views of Ithaca.

The GrassRoots Festival is a three day music festival that takes place in July (this year from the 19 through the 22). Although usually none of the bands are particularly famous unless you are from Ithaca, the quality of the acts is excellent and the atmosphere couldn't be more festive. It evokes the images from the festivals of the 60s, in which peace and love reigned. But before the reader grimaces any further, let me say that I mean that in a good way. You can take your kids, there is a good emergency infrastructure and the concert-goers are respectful. For more information check out:
www.grassrootsfest.org