I came across some plane tickets to New York on sale during summer 2022 and although I had not planned to go to America at all at the time, I wanted to take advantage of that favourable price. On the other hand, for different reasons I had to postpone some closer destinations again and so my autumn was “empty.” And everything that is empty has the need to be filled out. At least, that’s how the story goes.
Although I know I am always welcome at my New York friends’, I still had to ask them if it was ok if I went there and they said I could come any time I wanted. And then it occurred to me that there was something in the United States I really wanted to see. It was – leaves.
Yes, yes... leaves. But, not just any leaves. These are said to be some of the most beautiful leaves in the world (although this may be just the question of marketing), particularly in autumn when their colours change. This phenomenon is especially well known in the state of Vermont that is situated north of New York, along the border with Canada. Since I started to be quite fond of renting cars in 2022 in order to visit different places, I decided to do the same thing in New York as well.
Unfortunately, none of my New York friends could keep me company, but then something quite extraordinary happened. My very dear friend Daniela, a Chilean who loves Serbia and lives with her husband and children in Texas, said she would like to join me. I was delighted!
During the summer I concocted a plan of travelling north of New York and organised this together with Daniela who was in charge of renting a car. The agreement was that we should not book any accommodation in advance, since although I thought that my plan made sense, it was still quite possible that we would like to modify it on the spot. But, I will write about all of this later on, when the time comes. Here is the map that shows all the places I visited during this journey:
For now, let me say that I left Belgrade at the end of September. The weather was gorgeous and I first flew to Paris and then to New York.
Leaving Belgrade
The meeting with Milana and Mitar, my friends from New York, was just like always – great and with lots of love. I spent the weekend with them and already on Monday morning the two of them took me close to LaGuardia Airport where, at the parking lot of a rent-a-car company, I met Daniela. That was yet another affectionate meeting and the two of us were not only delighted that we would go together to visit, hmmm, the leaves, but also because we finally got together again after a few years.
As I’ve said, we had agreed that Daniela would be in charge of the selection and renting of the car, as well as the driving, which was quite fine with me. I have absolutely no problems with driving and when I need to drive I do it gladly, but if any of my co-travellers wants to drive – I absolutely agree. After all, I really love to look leisurely through the window, thus additionally soaking in the sights around me.
On the other hand, I must admit that as we were leaving New York City, driving along a motorway with an innumerable number of lanes, I was thoroughly grateful both to the Universe and to Daniela, since I think that if I had been alone I would still be driving along the motorways around NYC to this very day. I cannot speak of the other big cities in the USA, but in New York City, everything is somehow big, huge, enormous, including the motorways. Regardless of the GPS device in the car, the large number of lanes, entrances and exits from the roadways simply confused me. Perhaps I would have reacted differently if I had been in the driver’s seat, but as I was trying to figure out where we needed to change the lanes and exit, I was very content with my role of a passenger.
Soon we left the urban area of New York City and continued along a “normal” motorway towards Hartford, Connecticut.
Hartford is the fourth largest city in the state of Connecticut and yet it is the capital. It is also known as the Insurance Capital of the World because there are headquarters of a large number of insurance companies in the city.
There are several interesting places in the downtown area that are worth a visit and I thought that perhaps we would manage, but very soon I realised that dealing with the urban sections of Hartford would take up too much of our valuable time and away from what we wanted to do and that was to be in nature and to visit less urbanised parts of the west segment of the New England region.
In other words, I did not insist on entering downtown Hartford and was fully content to take a photo of the Connecticut State Capitol from afar. The construction of this edifice was completed in 1878 and, as I’ve found in one of my guidebooks, it included a “whimsical” bunch of towers, gables and other architectural elements.
Connecticut State Capitol
The building holds the Connecticut General Assembly: the State Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as the office of the Governor of the State of Connecticut.
However, close to the centre of Hartford there is a very interesting place that we both wanted to visit and that is the Mark Twain House museum, as well as a museum dedicated to this famous and brilliant writer. From the parking lot we first entered a modern museum building where we bought the tickets and also booked our places within the (mandatory) group visit of the house. By the way, Mark Twain is not only famous for his literary work but also for his sharp mind and thus many of his famous statements are engraved in the walls of this modern museum building. Since we had a little bit of free time, we went for coffee at the museum and soon after we gathered up in the museum hall with the other visitors from our group and the visit could start.
The guide was a very nice woman, dressed in a costume that reflected the second half of the 19th century and she presented herself to us saying that her name was Olivia Langdon Clemens, the wife of Mark Twain, and that she was about to take us through their house. Of course, this was all a part of the “show,” but it was all very lovely.
Beginning of the tour around Mark Twain House
Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), but he is known throughout the world by his pen name. It is interesting that “mark twain” is actually a cry used by steamboat sailors when measuring the depth of the water in order to make sure it was safe for navigation and the author used this particular pen name from 1863. This in fact reflects but a minute segment of a most interesting life of Mark Twain who in his youth tried different professions. Still, he is best known for his literary opus and he wrote some of his most famous pieces, including “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” precisely in this house.
Mark Twain lived with his family in Hartford from 1874 to 1891. Regardless of his literary success and the considerable earnings from writing, Mark Twain lost a lot of money through failed investments and thus the entire family had to leave the house in 1891 and move to Europe. In 1900, he returned to America since he had earned enough in the meantime to settle his debts. Parallel to the success and fame, the life of Mark Twain was also filled with great tragedies – let me just mention that he was outlived only by one daughter out of four children that he had with his wife.
Together with the group, Daniela and I visited the house nicely and thoroughly, but it was not permitted to take any photos inside and so I have here only a couple of photos that show the exterior appearance of the house that is a museum today.
Mark Twain House
As it may be seen, from the outside the house is characterised by open porches, towers and steep roofs, while the inside exhibits nice decoration from 1881.
Mark Twain House
Around the house and the modern museum building, there is a lawn and an area reminiscent of a small park and, like every autumn, the squirrels were very busy.
Mark Twain House, a detail
The Mark Twain House shares this “park” with two more historic buildings that are a part of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. These two houses could not be seen quite well because of the vegetation and especially the house in which Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the famous novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” lived for 23 years was “well hidden.” What could be seen easily was a house that belongs to the centre, but is not a historic building.
Part of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center
In line with my plan, the next interesting place that we were supposed to visit was Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts. This is apparently one of the biggest attractions of New England.
Let me first explain this term “New England.” This is the name for a region that encompasses six states situated in the northeast of the USA: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. The biggest city in the region is Boston that is also the capital of Massachusetts. The region is historically known because it was right here that the uprising against the British taxes in the colonies started. This led to the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and the consequent establishment of the USA that were founded on 4 July 1776 by signing the Declaration of Independence.
Now, let me go back to the period of autumn of 2022 and the theme of my travel around the west sections of New England. Before starting with this trip I did not have enough time to deal with any details linked to the places which the guidebook I was using proposed to be visited. I knew that the Old Sturbridge Village was the place where the traditional way of life in a small New England community could be seen and I also had the names of a couple of houses built in the village towards the end of the 18th century that were particularly interesting.
However, what happened and what I realised only after I had returned home when I started to work on my material for the travelogue was that Daniela and I missed this site altogether although we were certain we were in the right place. How? Well, thanks to the modern technology or rather the GPS device to be more precise, while we made a mistake. We typed in Sturbridge village and the device led us to the village, but this was the new part of the village. On the other hand, this did not happen again, so I can ascribe this to the “stress” linked to the beginning of the journey.
Not realising we were in the “wrong” place, the two of us did walk around a little and I must admit that we enjoyed quite nicely the part of the village we actually came to. The buildings were apparently not as old as the ones suggested by the guidebook, but they were certainly picturesque. Not to mention the details… for it was autumn, October and the season of – pumpkins.
Sturbridge, the local library and the pumpkins
Sturbridge, the local library and the pumpkins
Sturbridge, pumpkins on sale
Sturbridge, pumpkins on sale
We walked a little bit to a local creek and along the way I noticed a very pretty house that has a plaque saying 1800. I guess this is the year of the original construction, but I would not bet on this.
Sturbridge, a detail
As for the creek, it forms a small pond here, but it was actually the surroundings that I found particularly attractive, since one could already see the autumnal colours this region is famous for.
Sturbridge, a detail
Then we went back to the place where we had left the car and that was right next to a historic inn, nowadays a contemporary restaurant, founded in 1771. I think it was not strange that we were not looking for an old village – even this “new” one was interesting for the sightseeing and so we did not even realise that something was off and that we were not in the right place. We walked a little around the estate belonging to this restaurant and then we went in to have a bite.
Sturbridge, a detail
Regardless of the huge quantity of pumpkins we had seen previously, we opted for completely different things, but I think this is the right moment to share my recipe for a pumpkin cake that I received from an American lady many, many years ago. The batter that is prepared can be baked in trays of different form, but this time around I decided to go for squares. The taste is absolutely the same, irrespective of the form the cake is given.
PUMPKIN CAKE
- 225 g white flour
- 10 g baking powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 300 g sugar
- 120 ml sunflower oil
- 3 eggs
- 0.5 kg ground pumpkin (not too finely)
- 60 g chopped walnuts
Mix up the dry ingredients first and separately mix the oil and eggs well, and then combine it all. In the end you add the pumpkin and the walnuts. The batter is poured into the selected baking tray and the cake is then baked at 180 degrees C.
Over the warm cake you can put cream made of the following ingredients that need to be mixed very well: 100 g cream cheese, 100 g icing sugar, 10 g melted and cooled butter, 1/2 tbsp milk and 10 g of vanilla sugar.
Pumpkin cake