Celebrating Our Anniversary – Beautiful Drive Around Seneca Lake

Watkins Glen, NY (62 degrees, cloudy skies, rainy)

Finger Lakes (eleven)

There are eleven lakes making up the Finger Lake Area.  Our 14th wedding anniversary was today and we decided to drive around the one closest to our campground.  It is called Seneca Lake and is the largest  and deepest one. It is almost 40 miles from end to end. 3 1/2 miles wide, and 618 feet deep.  It is one of the deepest lakes in the U.S. and we have heard it’s usually too cold to swim in. 

Seneca Lake

We started at Watkins Glen and headed north in a counter clock wise direction.  The lake is really beautiful with lots of vineyards and farms along the banks. 

Seneca Lake

Our first stop was a beautiful water fall right along Route 414.  It was flowing really nicely due to a recent rain storm.  It has three sections  cascading down to the lake.  One can be seen from the road.

Hector Falls

Below is my first You Tube video.   It's a short, rather shaky video of the upper falls.  I was able to shorten the original video in Picassa and then upload it to You Tube.  Pretty cool! My brother will be proud of me. 

The other two cascades are seen along the lakeside of the road.  It was really pretty.  There are private cottages below which look amazing.  What a view they must have from their deck. 

Private cottages below the falls

Our next stop for a look at one of the vineyards was Atwater Estates.  There are 32 wineries around Seneca Lake and over 100 in the region.  Because of the depth of the lake the vineyards flank the shore. We’ve been told the lake effect protects the grapes from disastrous spring frost during shoot growth, and early frost before the harvest. 

Atwater Estates Vineyard

We stopped for lunch Ginny Lee restaurant located at the Wagner Vineyard.  The owners of the KOA recommended it to us.  They only serve lunch and in the summer have live bands on Friday evenings.  I had a bowl of the best French onion soup.  It was delicious and made with wine from the vineyard.  They make a wide variety of wines and beers and I triend their Chardonnay.  It was very nice.

Ginny Lee Restaurant

John has a really bad cold, so we decided not to tour the vineyard today.  We’ll come back soon for a tour and wine tasting.  It’s a beautiful place. 

Wagner Vineyard

There are wine trails, cheese trails, farm trails, beer trails, and even a chocolate trail around Seneca Lake. The visitor center gave us a great map showing all the stops. We are going to have a fun time checking out some of these places this summer. I even found a app for my Droid phone called the Finger Lake Wine Map. It's pretty cool. 

We also stopped in Geneva, the northern most point of the lake.  It is a very pretty town with beautiful homes along the lake.  The Hobart and William Smith College is located here. 

Lakeside home

We saw these trees blooming everywhere. Do you know what these are called? Most of the trees had white blooms but we found several pink blooming trees. 


Sailboats out on the lake (sailing school?)

We enjoyed our day driving around Seneca Lake. It was a very special wedding anniversary spent with my favorite guy. We saw a beautiful lake, gorgeous waterfall, pretty parks, several charming villages and tried a great wine. It was a perfect day. Jimmy had a good time too with new smells and lots of green grass. Life is good!