Watkins Glen, NY

September 29- Oct 1, 2026

We arrived at the Watkins Glen Harbor Hotel yesterday after about a 5 1/2 hour trip from NJ. The weather was perfect. We stopped at an Tully’s for lunch. The trees in northern PA were beautiful.

We had never been to one – there must have been 60 TVs around the room!

We arrived in Watkins Glen around 3 PM and we checked into the hotel. We had made a dinner reservation at the Blue Pointe restaurant and we had a lovely dinner there and a good night’s sleep after a long day.

We got up very early to hike at the Watkins Glen State Park and it was a great decision.

Very few people, perfect weather and a lot of steps! Bear with me while I post many pictures of the lovely waterfalls. We even saw two deer – I could only get a shot of the one watching us from the water.

There were over 800 steps to reach the top. We took the Gorge trail up where there are many waterfalls and took the North Rim trail down. It was so beautiful and hardly any people were on the trails. We met one man who said that he came yesterday and could not get good pictures because there were so many people there.

Watkins Glen is all about the races that took place here. Even the traffic crosswalks are in the style of the checkered flags!

We had breakfast at the Babe and Bud’s Cafe which was a nice relaxing time after our hike. Then we went out to visit the selected two wineries.

We went to the Hermann J Wiemer winery first. The wineries here are mostly noted for their rieslings and they did not disappoint. Victor led us through a nice tasting and we bought a couple of bottles.

We drove to the next winery we had selected, the Dr. Konstantin Frank winery on the shores of Keuka lake. It reminded me that my high school guidance counselor recommended Keuka college for my nursing education – unfortunately my family couldn’t afford it – but it is a beautiful area.

We had a really nice tasting of 6 wines paired with a cheese plate. Of course we bought some to take home.

The nice thing about this tasting was both the generous portions and the ability to each choose the one we wanted from each of the selections. The cheese pairing also added to the delicious tasting.

The day took us from the walk to the state park to breakfast to nice drives to both wineries. Tomorrow we will leave for the Niagara Falls and Niagara on the Lake part of our trip.