Falling for America: Autumn leaves and road-trip days as New England turns to gold

By CHRIS LEADBEATER


Orange and blue: New England looks at its finest in autumn - particularly in the Vermont village of Grafton


We are three hours outside Boston when autumn properly kicks in. The town of New Ashford has just receded in my mirrors as we push north on the thin ribbon of US Route 7 – when we round a corner and the world goes orange. And yellow, brown and purple.

This is Berkshire County (more often referred to, simply, as ‘The Berkshires’) – a bucolic enclave in western Massachusetts where the ‘Fall’ does not wear its garments lightly. Up ahead, a low-slung hill – an early preview of the Green Mountains National Forest that rises beyond the state line in Vermont – runs through its turn-of-the-season party piece.

Wide and curvy rather than tall and angular, its flanks are daubed in various subtle shades of chocolate, where summer has abandoned the trees – though the pines dotted across the slopes, resolute in their refusal to fit in with the makeover, pepper the picture with green. Seen through the flashing glare of late afternoon, the hillock resembles the reclining back of a giant bear, fresh from a roll in the dirt – thick tawny coat dusted with sprigs of moss.

Glancing to the left, my wife spots a maple so converted to red that its limbs might have been dipped in blood. In a harsher, meaner location, it could be a dark omen from a horror movie. But there is nothing horrific about the shafts of sunlight that beam onto the tree, pulsing through the fabric of its leaves, illuminating each vein. It is a glorious sight.


Making a point: The Bennington Monument marks a key battle of the American War of Independence


In truth, we had not expected to encounter the full force of Fall so soon. We had decided, on landing in Boston, to engineer a fast getaway from America’s great colonial city – and rush across to the more genteel side of Massachusetts on the east-west artery of Route 2. But even this semi-busy highway had been tagged with slashes of colour – at Erving, and at pretty Greenfield. Once autumn gathers momentum in New England, it is inescapable.

There is good reason for this. The six states and 72,000 square miles that comprise this birthing ground of the United States are a forested wonderland, 60 per cent hidden under boughs and branches. The autumnal extravaganza has a splendid canvas to play with, and it seizes its chance, beginning in northerly Maine at the start of September, and drifting south, first into New Hampshire and Vermont, then into Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The second week of October is the main event, but the show continues until November, when the winter chill whipping off Long Island Sound extinguishes the flame.

That evening, we stop at the Arlington Inn – a 19th century nugget of Victorian décor and open hearths nestled in the bottom corner of Vermont – and pore over our road atlas. Our plan is simple: to forage north, and then east, through Vermont and New Hampshire, towards the upper reaches of New England, in search of ever more fabulous foliage.

We do not have to travel far to find it. At nearby Bennington, a 93-metre obelisk jabs its finger at the heavens in tribute to the Battle Of Bennington, a crucial victory, hard-fought in 1777, in America’s bid to free itself from British control.

But while the huge pillar is massively impressive (if misleading – the battle site is actually 10 miles east in Walloomsac, New York State), its thunder is stolen by the burnished trees that surround it on its grassy circle. John Stark, the general who won the day, looks mildly miffed at the intrusion, the outstretched arm of his statue gesturing towards a particularly blazing oak.


Heading for a Fall: Autumn's colours add an extra majesty to New England's red-brick architecture


For a state so close to New York and Boston, Vermont is incredibly rural, a landscape of farmsteads, cornfields and furrowed soil, flecked with hamlets and outposts. Grafton, to the north-east of Arlington, is so remote that Route 121, the ‘road’ that ties it to the map, has unpaved sections. It adds up to a bumpy journey as we bounce over the rutted surface – though the scene that awaits at the end is worth every jolt: a village of such preserved purity – a clapboard church, pale against the autumn background; a stately post office; the Hunter Gallery Of Fine Art, where we peruse watercolour images of New England life – that it scarcely seems real. But any sense of the inauthentic is dashed as we retrace our way along the 121. As we exit a tight bend, a juvenile Black Bear is sat in our path. He eyes us for a moment, then, unconcerned, lopes away, disappearing amid the trunks.

But then, Vermont is ideal for those who want to make placid progress through pastoral America. We ease north up Route 100 – through woozy Weston, where the Vermont Country Store (vermontcountrystore.com) lives up to its billing, selling everything from toys to cookies and cheese in a vast red barn – and east along Route 4. Woodstock, where we rest for the night, is a painstakingly perfect example of a New England town – coffee shops and staunch steeples; the elegant Woodstock Inn, where we park, tired from the road, and step into an elegant retreat where the Blue Cheese Polenta in the Red Rooster restaurant sates an appetite built over long miles; a covered bridge redolent of past times; Quechee Gorge, on the outskirts, proffering a dizzying plunge to the Ottauquechee River, its birch-laden banks a leafy sweep of fire; Gillingham’s General Store (gillinghams.com) on Elm Street, where the shelves groan with olive oil, spices, and bottles of maple syrup.


All ablaze: Montpelier, the state capital of Vermont, may well be the perfect New England town


We sample some of the latter at Morse Farm (morsefarm.com), a tumbledown clutch of sheds where a family business has been producing this sticky Vermont favourite from a shady orchard for over two centuries – then fall in love with nearby Montpelier, the Vermont capital, where the State House, guarded by autumnal trees of its own, exudes the sort of crisp American grandeur George Washington must have seen in his dreams.

Something seems to change as we cut east and cross the state line. If Vermont is largely rustic then New Hampshire is decidedly refined. Its quiet sophistication is written onto the pristine face of Lancaster, where – dropped into town by US Route 2 – we notice five white churches, arranged in a neat row on Main Street. And it is certainly apparent in the midst of the White Mountains National Forest, where swish golf courses and plush hotels have been slotted among the sharp peaks and meandering rivers. This is New England’s year-round holiday zone, vacation-ville, where upmarket ski resorts cater for the winter crowd, and amusement parks with titles like ‘Whale’s Tale’ entertain summer families.

Yet, even at busy intersections, where cars wait politely in front of red traffic lights, the beauty of the area is undeniable. As we cut past tiny Bretton Woods, at the heart of the Forest, a small lake shows the sky its reflection in the fading embers of the day. Glen Ellis Falls rips and roars down a rocky chasm. And the diminutive town of Jackson does antique shops and the spectacle of fat pumpkins laid on door steps ahead of Halloween.


Golden wonderland: Lake Chocorua in New Hampshire becomes a riot of colours as the season changes


Then there is the view from the summit of Mount Washington – at 6288ft the highest point in New England. The pamphlet that we are handed at the bottom of the eight-mile toll road to the top says that, on clear days, you can see all the way to the Atlantic from the mountain’s roof. Half an hour later, the horizon something of a blur, such talk seems a trifle optimistic – but it really doesn’t matter. At this height, the contrast between the naked stone above the tree line and the frenzy of Fall colour in the valley is striking.

At the time, we conclude that we are unlikely to see a finer snapshot of autumn on our journey. But New England has one last autumnal surprise planned – and one more rapid gear-switch in atmosphere. At Shelburne, we flit over another state line, waving goodbye to New Hampshire and slipping into Maine. Here is the biggest state of New England, a wild beast festooned with evergreen firs, its head nuzzling the southern edge of Canada.

When we open the car windows, there is a smell of winter – slight, but discernible – on the air – although the countryside still wears a coat of autumn, not least on the corridor of US Route 2, which we will follow as far as the mill town of Skowhegan, before returning south on the I-95 motorway. Ultimately we will arrive back in Boston – where the leaves, stoked to an orange inferno around the perimeter of the Common, give an extra tint of majesty to the red-brick masonry and the shining dome of the Massachusetts State House.


Top of New England: Mount Washington offers fabulous views from its summit - on clear days


However, before we depart Maine, we pause briefly – the very name demands that I slam on the brakes – in the little town of Mexico. Alongside the highway, the Androscoggin River flows briskly, acting as a wobbling mirror for the waterside beeches as the foliage dies its gorgeous death above. In New England, it seems, even a word that comes with indelible connotations of desert and tequila has to bow to the annual majesty of the Fall.

Travel Facts

A one-week road-trip break, including return flights to Boston from Heathrow and seven days’ car hire through Alamo, costs from £519 per person with Virgin Holidays (0844 557 3859, www.virginholidays.co.uk) – who also do a 13-night self-drive ‘New England Highlife’ holiday that covers Boston, Maine, the White Mountains and the Berkshires (from £2069, including flights, car, accommodation). Double rooms at the Arlington Inn (www.arlingtoninn.com) start at £63; at the Woodstock Inn (www.woodstockinn.com) from £202.

More information on the region via Discover New England (discovernewengland.org).


source :dailymail