Our trip to Europe and the States 2013: Stowe and the Sound of Music Connection

A photo from the bus

Arrived in Stowe, Vermont late this afternoon, having driven from Williamstown via a stop at the "Vermont Country Store" in Weston, then onto the beautiful town Woodstock and finally a visit to a working diary farm, just outside of the town, on the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.

At the Vermont Country Store

We are now at our hotel, "The Trapp Family Lodge" in Stowe, yes of the Sound of Music Fame. The hotel is located on the property that the Capt and his wife Maria, purchased after they arrived in the States just before the start of the second world war. The Lodge is now run by one of their grandsons. It is a pretty spectacular location in the Vermont's, Green Mountains. Tomorrow we will get out and have a good look around.

No we didn't buy these

Today we have had a great trip, visiting the places that I mentioned above and driving through some amazing country covered in autumn colours.

Here is today's photo offering.....

Great Shopping

View from Covered bridge Woodstock

The town of Woodstock

19th Century Farmstead

With inquisitive native

Nearby gorge

Some of todays colours

View from our room

The real Baron and Maria Von Trapp

The Trapp Family Lodge

Second day in Stowe today the land of the Von Trapps. Spent the morning visiting a couple of sites. The first was an apple cider plant, then onto Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory (they are two good old Vermont boys) and finally to the "Morse Sugar Shack" where they have been cultivating a maple tree plantation for eight generations, and we where shown how they harvest and make the maple syrup, by "Burr" an old member of the current generation. I think that he has inhaled too many sugar fumes over the years :-) , but he was very entertaining. He had a great sense of humour. You can see more of the place by clicking on this link, watch the video at the bottom of this page to see how they get the maple sap. They then connect all the trees together with a vacuum suction system to collect the sap, it was fascinating to see how it is done, also see photo below.

Pressing Apple pulp for cider

The ice cream factory visit was OK, but I have seen all of that many times. The Apple cider process was also very interesting, see photo on left, pressing the apple plup.

We then visited Stowe for a few hours and had a look around the town. I didn't get a very good selection of "Autumn" photos today but Ruth did, so I have included hers below.

Burr Morse entertaining us, funny man

Got back to the hotel and watched a video on Maria Von Trapp, telling her story, which was fascinating and very close to the movie, which only had a few changes. The family settled in Stowe Vermont, because it reminded them of Austria. Had dinner in the Lodge restaurant tonight and that was nice. On the move again tomorrow, to New Conway, in New Hampsire.