It’s no news: the heat is slowly burning us. Right after the Fourth of July – the national day in the US – we left town to go in the country, hoping to find some fresh air. It didn’t work – except when we spent 2 hours tubing in a river, and the time spent in the car, thanks the A/C. Anyway, heat or no, our first stop was in the center of Massachusetts, in the Pioneer Valley. As usual, Massachusetts country wasn’t a disappointment: we spent some time in Deerfield – an old historic village and Northampton – a College Town, in the middle of woods and hills, close to the Connecticut River, the longest river in New England.
The small historic village of Deerfield
Deerfield is stuck in time: the one and only street of the village, which name is simply The Street, has many old houses, a tavern with rocking chairs on the front deck and a quaint post office with a weird steeple on top. There was not many people in the street, us and some other tourists. We bought our tickets at the visitor center and started walking – there was not much possibility to get lost.
At the end of the 1930’s, a rich couple bought almost all the houses in this village (the rest of the street is a college, where their son went to, that’s why they came here in the first place). They decided to fix the buildings and to give them back their old look, most of them were from the 18th century, and belong to a minister, a farmer or a trader – different people, different styles of houses. The works were made despite some basic historical sense, because the idea was to show the collection of the couple. Each house is now a small museum and not really an authentic historical testimony. Who cares, it’s pretty and interesting enough, and we had there another opportunity to learn more American history.
Deerfield is a lively outdoors museum, where you can see some workshop about silversmith, vintage cuisine. We went to the house for kids and took pictures of ourselves with Laura Ingalls costumes (well, I was with a friend, Manu took the pictures). That was the crazy part of the day.
Northampton, College Town in the country
At the end of the afternoon, we went to Northampton. I really wanted to see this town and was sure to find something really cool based on what I’ve read, it was supposed to be a small Cambridge. But it was unfortunately too hot to walk, so we basically spent our time to find a bar. We still saw some pretty signs:
The Pioneer Valley
Deerfield and Northampton are in the Pioneer Valley. That’s also where you can find Amherst, where the poetess Emily Dickinson used to live. A few centuries ago, they were many wars between Native Americans and Dutsch, French and English settlers – that explains one name. And a few centuries ago, they were dinosaurs – it’s the other nickname of the valley. Easy.
To take the picture above, we went on top of the mount Holyoke. We can see the Connecticut River.
The Pioneer Valley…
For whom? History and literature geeks who like to hike and eat in a good restaurant at night. I’m sure these people exist.
When/how do we go? It’s a good way to reach Vermont or New Hampshire from New York City, without going to Boston. It’s also a good point to go to the great Mohawk Trail, the perfect scenic road to watch the fall foliage.
We are just coming back from a weekend spent in Connecticut – if you follow my Instagram I’ve posted a few pictures along the days. Happy Monday!
