One of the reasons I was keen to go to Woodstock in October was for the leaf season, which I have read lots about and even checked out interactive maps of the best places to see the colours in New York state, most of which we’d missed by early November. In order to get to Woodstock, we needed to head to Penn Station, which is roughly the size of Europe and home to a thousand platforms. I loved seeing the names of where the trains were going. There are locations such as Elizabeth, Lancaster, but then names like Manasquan, Croton Harmon, Schenectady and Poughkeepsie which sound just exotic enough to warrant lots of exploring. 

When we found our platform, I fell in love with how American the train looked. It was a sheet of aluminium with windows, or an Airstream caravan on rails. Much like the subway, it was brute and efficient. Whereas British trains are making attempts to look swish with the Azuma’s long nose looking a bit like a much slower bullet train, the Amtrak train just looked like a kid’s drawing of train. It was entirely charming as well as being comfortable. 

As we sped up to the giddy heights of not fast, about 40 minutes out of Penn Station, I wasn’t really prepared for just how bright and luminescent the remaining leaves would be. Some were so bursting with colour it felt that people had painted them with a neon marker. It was astonishing and means I need to visit the region again earlier in October to see the best of it. We slowly made our way up the Hudson river, opposite us an endless row of trees in all their glory. Eventually, we made it to Rhinecliff, the nearest station to Woodstock. It’s 18 miles away from the town, which tells you all you need to know about the railways in the US. 

Arriving in Woodstock, where we were staying with friends for a few days, I was struck by the beautiful blue sky and how perfect the town looked. Everything was bustling and almost every shop was selling something mystic, vintage or Woodstock related. The festival – the 1969 one and not the disastrous ‘99 version – is important to the town even though it was actually held 40 miles away in Bethel. That’s probably a pub quiz answer. 

We had lunch at Bread Alone, which says it is a values-driven bread maker and cafe. I can vouch that it was all delicious and didn’t seem evil. We had a stroll around the town, which has a population of 5000 people, so it didn’t take long to see most of it, then we decided to walk up a street which soon had no pavement and was just road, so we turned around and took lots of photos of the colours of the trees. Back in the centre, we found an equivalent of a pub, called Pearl Moon, which was one of the few places open for drinks in the late afternoon. Ah, the humble pub, much imitated but never bettered. It’s one of the few British institutions which can’t be beaten. The music in Pearl Moon was at a loud enough volume to make reading impractical, so I soon gave up.

In the evening, we all went to Cucina, a restaurant in an old farmhouse that just oozed atmosphere, with gorgeous low lighting and long tables designed for eating in groups. It also went hard on the pumpkin-mania that was sweeping the east coast of America. Every table had pumpkins on, of all glorious shapes and sizes. In a concerning development, even the toilets had little pumpkins dotted artfully around the room. I don’t know about you, but when I am doing toilet, I don’t need decorative pumpkins in the room with me. If you find yourself in Woodstock, then do try out Cucina as it was not only a great place to visit but the food was great, with very generous portions of excellent pasta. 

Back at our friends, I spent some time on their porch looking at the stars, in a gentle state of wonder. The stars are always there, if you can see them. In London, a starry night consists of experiencing the very brightest stars breaking through the light pollution but here I could see all sorts of stars, such as all the stars whose names I don’t know. I just know there were loads of stars. 

The next morning I was taken on a hike up the Overlook Mountain Trail, which rises 3,140 feet above the town and I suddenly felt like my city lifestyle had caught up with me. Going up a steep trail for a long time is not what I am used to, so I did what I could to keep up with the pace, but every so often I had to stop and look at a rock/catch my breath. As we progressed up the paths, we came across an abandoned hulk of what was a hotel, which burnt down twice and was under reconstruction in the 1930s when they decided not to finish it, what with the fires and the days of the Catskills grand hotels being over. Being constructed out of concrete let it remain in surprisingly good condition to this day. As a big fan of The Shining, I decided that this hotel was the Overlook Hotel and nobody can tell me otherwise. 

Every so often we saw signs reminding us that rattlesnakes might pop out and enliven the morning but once we reached the top, we met a man who was taking the signs down. The rattlesnakes had gone back home, or to their nest, or whatever it is that they do that means they were no longer a threat to us. Still, it added a little bit of danger to the hike. Right at the top of the mountain is a fire tower, which offers sensational views from its vantage point. I made it halfway up and suddenly had to descend. It felt a little too wobbly for my liking and what if a rattlesnake had slithered up the top, just waiting to attack. 

After a long hike, it made perfect sense to walk back into Woodstock and have a sit down meal at Garden Cafe where I heard the same conversation quite a few times, which went along the lines of:

Customer: Do you have real milk?

Staff: We are a plant based cafe. 

Customer: So, do you have real milk?

It didn’t matter, everything was great and Garden Cafe is a friendly reminder that vegan food is often much more inventive than meat options. How delicious do indian chickpea blinis sound, for goodness sake!

After this, we went for a stroll in the Comeau Property, which is a beautifully peaceful walk set out across 76 acres of meadows, river walks and woodland. The colours were, once more, glorious with deep blue skies and deep orange and russet tones on the trees. Standing still for a few minutes under a tree was enough for me to realise just how quickly the leaves were falling – and within a few days, all the remaining colour would be gone. 

Throughout the day, we saw deer everywhere. Packs of them, just wandering around, looking serene for a split second before panicking and rushing off in every direction. Up in the sky, I enjoyed looking up and seeing all the birds whose names I did not know. However, I was able to take a ridiculously blurry shot of a bird to a keen ornithologist. He told me the bird was a Cardinal which is a gorgeous creature. It has a brilliant red body with a little outline of black around its face and the mix of the bird’s colour with the colour of the leaves was a sight to behold. 

Later that afternoon, we hurled some more money down a black hole at Early Terrible which was a sort of mystical cocktail bar, set in a cosy log cabin. One thing that American toilets like to do is keep the lighting so low that it’s almost impossible to see what you’re doing in there. You could be aiming at a bin or a startled deer. But the bar was a cool place in which to enjoy the afternoon light and sights of Woodstock.

On our last day in Woodstock, we ventured out of town to Sloan gorge Preserve, which is apparently home to bears, raccoons and so forth, but no bear was forthcoming. As much as I thought I’d like to see one, I do think I would have probably just fainted in panic before being eaten alive, so it was for the best that we didn’t see one. Sloan Gorge is a canyon formed from an old quarry which was in operation in the late 1800s as well as a gorge formed in the ice age. It was a wonderful walk with probably the best trail markings I have ever seen. Most places have a few signs dotted about, so you get lost for days in the wilderness, but getting lost here would take real effort. The paths go on for a mile or so before you’re back in the car park.

After this, we visited Opus 40 sculpture park, which was built over 37 years by a man called Harvey Fite. He dedicated much of his life, having a cracking time making all sorts of marvellous sculptures from the remains of another bluestone quarry. He was once an actor and then changed his mind rather dramatically, travelling to Florence to learn tricks of the trade from sculptors there. Later on, he moves to the site of Opus 40 and then builds a house without plumbing and electricity and sets to making his sculptures. Now it is a warren of different sculptures for everyone to look at and in the summer, the site turns into an open air cinema. 

In the evening, we had a meal at Silvia, which was described as “bucks deluxe” by one of our friends. I ignored this ominous warning at my peril. Bread and whipped butter with honey (sweet butter!!) was $15 a portion, and we had two. But it tasted so sensational, it was impossible to not keep ordering. Likewise, the restaurant did Brussels sprouts and they tasted heavenly. The mains were works of art, as were the cocktails. And again, the restaurant was enticing, set in a beautiful building with a lovely wraparound terrace for dining. An amazing meal to end my time in beautiful Woodstock.