Burlington, VT -

Just got back from a great trip to Burlington, VT. It's May 17 and the weather is glorious. 70 and sunny. Crisp blue sky and lilacs are blooming everywhere. They must be native to the area, we even heard there were 400 varieties of them although I thought they came in either a lilac color or white! Almost every front yard has one or two. There’s this amazing bike path that runs along the lake front (that’s Lake Champlain) where we biked several times. It even turns into this narrow strip of land about 15 feet wide where you are surrounded by water on both sides. This is as you head north and get near the islands in the lake. It’s such a beautiful area, you feel like you’re in Canada. We even saw two beavers swimming along in the water. Very cool ! Another really cool thing we saw for the first time was bike polo. We came across an outdoor hockey arena and saw a bunch of guys and one gal on bikes hitting a ball with homemade mallets. So we stopped and chatted with some guys watching and they told us it is indeed bike polo and it’s not that new, there are many places in the US where people play. They do have to rig up a bike to work for this. They change the gears so you can pedal forward or backward and they take off the brakes. If you want to slow down you just go in reverse. And many put on a shield to cover the spokes on the wheel since as you can imagine, your mallet can get caught in the spokes of your opponent quite easily.

We stayed at the Howard Street Guest House which was perfect. It's a converted carriage house with two rooms, one up and one down. It's one of the most charming, spacious, beautifully decorated places we've ever stayed. This is my ideal when travelling. If only I could find an inn like this every time I went away. http://www.howardstreetguesthouse.com/rooms.html

A must stop in town for all your food needs is The City Market http://www.citymarket.coop/ – the town’s co-op, this is an amazing natural foods and then some store with a deli, bakery, wine section and hot and cold food bar. I could eat here every day and never get bored. They had an entire vegan section on the food bar with creative tofu, seitan and tempeh dishes that changed every day. Burlington is so bike friendly that they have a huge bike rack area. If you build it, they will come! Almost every other customer came by bike. Very eco-friendly.

For dinner one night, we ate at Stone Soup, College St – we had the Seitan Reuben which was heavenly and they also have a vegan hot food bar which I indulged in – seitan stew, barbecued tempeh, steamed kale, rice pilaf.

Dinner another night was at The Skinny Pancake, a creperie, Lake St. http://www.skinnypancake.com/ The decision here is whether to get a meal type crepe or a desert crepe. So we had both. The Vegan Monster-House-made
Seitan, baby spinach, VT wild mushrooms, caramelized onions, and roasted red peppers served in a vegan crepe shell. And the Hot Apply Crispy – tart
Vermont Apples, Pure Vermont honey, Cinnamon Sugar. They have great outdoor seating across from the lakefront and it was fun to see the grads from UVM dressed in party dresses racing down to catch a party boat for a sunset cruise on the lake. This place is extra cool since they source most of their ingredients from local farms and food producers.

There were so many great restaurants with veggie options that we didn't even get to them all. Be sure to check out Happy Cow if you're planning on visiting the area.

There’s also a great fair trade shop, Peace & Justice located on Lake St (right next to the Skinny Pancake!) They are an organization working on racial justice, peace and human rights and also have this great shop with fair trade products from around the world. We got a new peace sign magnet for the car here.

All in all, it was a great trip; the weather was delightful and the sights were a treat. And of course the veggie food was divine.