10 photos we loved from the Naples Grape Festival!

By Melissa Knoblauch on Sep. 30, 2015

The Naples Grape Festival, held the last week of September since 1961, celebrates the area’s grape harvest, as well as local business owners, artists, farmers, musicians... I could go on. For me, it also means celebrating the close of summer, and welcoming the start of fall. Knowing that some of you may have missed the festival this year or in past years due to other obligations – work, school, travel, Sunday football – let’s take a trip down festival memory lane and look through some of my favorite Instagram photos from the last few years of the Naples Grape Festival…

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Thanks for asking: Where to find fresh cabbage and cauliflower in the Finger Lakes

Sep. 17, 2015

A Pennsylvania traveler called the office yesterday, pining for the delicious cabbage and cauliflower purchased here years ago when visiting the Finger Lakes. The caller is returning to our area next week and wanted to know where more cabbage and cauliflower could be purchased…

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You are never too old for a field trip

Sep. 11, 2015

Everyone who works at the Finger Lakes Visitors Connection just happens to live in different parts of Ontario County. So we have a lot of collective home turf expertise. Earlier this week, we spent the day in the “twin villages” of Manchester and Shortsville, as well as a mid-day stop in Clifton Springs. For those of us who live in other parts of the county, the day was filled with a lot of “I didn’t know that” moments. Here are my favorites…

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The Finger Lakes-Wyoming Connections

Sep. 08, 2015

I love to travel because it lets me experience people and places that are new and different and invigorating in ways I could never have imagined. Yet inevitably if I come across something that reminds me of home, it makes me feel all that more connected to this new destination. Two weeks ago I took part in a press tour in and around Cody, Wyoming, joining our friends at the Midwest Travel Writers Association who held their fall conference there…

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A Finger Lakes Labor Day Weekend on a Harley!

Sep. 02, 2015

I am a creature of habit doing things that I enjoy and this year isn’t going to be any different. Scott and I are counting down until Sunday, September 6 th to ride in Marty’s 30th annual Labor Day Poker Run for motorcycles (the majority are Harleys but all are welcome to join in).…

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Seeing Naples beyond the grapes

By Valerie Knoblauch on Aug. 20, 2015

“Grape Pie Capital of the World” or “Finger Lakes Simplicity” or “Easy like Sunday Morning” or “Nooks and Crannies” or “Where People are Just Plain Nice.” What is the potential tagline for Naples, New York? When you work in tourism your mind often goes to taglines. What quick phrase can sum up the feeling you have when you’re in a place? Naples is a small village of approximately 1,200 residents who are gearing up for what some estimate to be visitors to the tune of 70,000 or more for the Naples Grape Festival. The folks in Naples sure appreciate all those visitors, and the festival remains our most requested special event. Why not, we all agree.  It’s fun, it’s busy, it’s purple, it’s tasty. And, despite all of this, I suggest that people take the time to visit the “non-grape-festival-weekend” Naples as well. Why?  Well, let’s get back to the title conundrum. What is Naples, NY…

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The Finger Lakes farm-to-supermarket connection

Aug. 15, 2015

There are not many parts of the country where the local supermarket is a tourism destination, but a lot of us Finger Lakes lifers bring our out-of-town guests and family members to Wegmans Food Markets, an award-winning supermarket chain with deep roots in the Rochester and Finger Lakes region. Staff is exceedingly friendly and helpful. The produce department always looks ready for a Martha Stewart photo shoot. And in the Canandaigua store where I shop most frequently, there is a burger bar, sushi counter, coffee kiosk and an outdoor patio where I can eat all the food I'm too lazy to cook myself…

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Blasts from the past at Antique Wireless Museum

Aug. 14, 2015

Several weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Voice of America made its debut on radios beyond our borders, broadcasting in German as a new strategy to counter Nazi propaganda and promote American democracy and other values to Americans in occupied territory as well as to overseas allies. The original VOA relied on shortwave radio, a technology, which previously had only been used in private enterprise. The Antique Wireless Museum, a mind-boggling collection of historic communications equipment and hardware, now brings a sizable piece of VOA history to Bloomfield…

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The bucks stopped here. And here. And here.

Aug. 11, 2015

The first time I noticed it I had to stop and stare to figure out what I was really seeing and why on Earth it was there. Sure enough, as I paused on my way to a meeting at the Inn on the Lake in Canandaigua, a large deer adorned with clouds, vines, and the rolling hills of the Canandaigua area stood off to the left of the main entrance, seemingly greeting me as I walked in. It stood, lurking behind a few trees, gazing ominously back at me. No, it was not a real animal, and no, this wasn’t something out of a Hunter S. Thompson story; but why a hotel would have such a large deer painted like a scenic landscape eerily hiding behind the front door landscaping was completely beyond me. I stared at it in disbelief, like (okay, you saw this coming) a deer stuck in the headlights…

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A pageant that lets you let off a little (or a lot) of steam

Aug. 04, 2015

In just a few days the town of Hopewell near Canandaigua will welcome more than 40,000 people to the 55 th annual Pageant of Steam.This event will bring visitors of all ages, backgrounds and lifestyles.  I really admire the mission statement from the N.Y. Steam Engine Association, which promotes this unique event. ”Demonstrating the past to educate the future.”  It truly is a pageant dedicated to steam. In fact, I think of it as four days of tractor performance art…

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