Saratoga Springs & Cooperstown


Sponsored by TDF




This trip featuring the Saratoga Performing Arts includes motor coach transportation, 4 night accomodations, daily breakfast, 2 lunches, 3 dinners, 4 performance tickets and admissions to a plethera of museums.  



Saratoga Springs and Cooperstown are two of New York State's most popular summer vacation destinations, each known for its scenic beauty, village charm and its rich cultural heritage.  Our summer adventure explores both of these exciting towns, beginning in the Adirondacks with two nights in the thriving arts center of Saratoga Springs.  At the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the cultural hub of upstate New York, we enjoy two performances by the New York City Ballet and we tour the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame.  Cultural attractions also include the Hyde Collection Art Museum in Glen Falls, and Yadoo artist colony.  Then we continue to the rolling foothills of the northern Catskills, into the landscape of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales.  We spend two nights near Cooperstown which is filled with treasures for fans of opera, baseball, American literature, art, antiques and history.  We visit Hyde Hall and the Fenimore Museum of Art and we have tickets for two matinee performances at the highly acclaimed Glimmerglass Opera.  On our return to New York we have tour the Storm King Art Center, with its prestigious collection of outdoor sculpture, set on the Hudson River.






1.  Friday, July 20     Depart NYC
We meet our guide and private motor-coach this morning at our central midtown Manhattan location (30th Street @ 7th Avenue) and depart, traveling directly to Saratoga Springs.  Upon arrival we have lunch (included) followed by an exploratory tour of lovely Saratoga Springs, focusing on the preservation of its unique architectural, cultural and landscaped heritage.  In its heyday in the late 19th century, Saratoga Springs was the elegant refuge of high-society, and today it abounds with splendid examples diverse architectural styles including Victorian, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Early Federal, Greek Revival and English Gothic.  Once again, guests enjoy the excellent central location and facilities at our hotel, the Saratoga Holiday Inn.  Amenities include a restaurant and 2 pools.    
 
There is time to relax and refresh before this evening's welcome dinner and our first performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC).  Tonight in the acoustically ideal amphitheatre in the heart of Spa State Park, the New York City Ballet performs a program including Balanchine's Dances at a Gathering and Four Temperments.  (L) (D)  



2.  Saturday, July 21     Glen Falls
This morning, following breakfast, we travel to nearby Glen Falls, New York for a visit to the renowned Hyde Collection Art Museum, a splendid display of old and modern masters.  The collection, housed in a gorgeous renovated mansion, is reminiscent of New York City's Frick Collection in its breadth and beautiful setting.  Among the treasures assembled in the 1912, neo-Renaissance Florentine-style villa is an impressive array of works by Raphael, da Vinci, Van Dyck, Tiepolo, El Greco, Reubens, Tintoretto, Homer, Whistler, Turner, Degas, Seurat, Renoir, Picasso, and van Gogh.    
 
After returning to Saratoga Springs and lunch on our own, we visit the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame, the only museum in the nation dedicated to American professional dance.  The museum is located in the former Washington Bath House, a spacious, airy 1918 Arts and Crafts-style building, in Saratoga Spa State Park.  The museum houses a growing collection of photographs, videos, artifacts, costumes, biographies and archives comprising a contemporary and retrospective examination of seminal contributions to dance.  Next we visit Yaddo, the renowned artist's community founded in 1900 by the financier Spencer Trask and his wife Katrina.  The Yaddo Gardens are part of the 400-acre estate, consisting of a formal rose garden and an informal rock garden with turn-of-the-century fountains and statues.  Saratoga is synonymous with thoroughbred racing and is appropriately the home of the National Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame, our next destination.  Founded to honor the achievements of those horses, jockeys, and trainers whose records and reputations have withstood the difficult test of time, it's a treasure trove of racing memorabilia.    
 
Tonight we have tickets for our second New York City Ballet performance, George Balanchine's classic Jewels.   (B)  



3.  Sunday, July 22     Cooperstown
After breakfast we check out of the hotel and travel to the charming town of Cooperstown, on the shore of lovely Otsego Lake, also known as "Glimmerglass," the evocative name given it by America's earliest great novelist, James Fenimore Cooper.  Cooperstown is known for its glorious natural beauty and its important place in the heritage of America.  Indeed, in 1837 he wrote "Lying, as it does, off the great routes, the village of Cooperstown is less known than it deserves to be.  Few persons visit it without acknowledging the beauties of its natural scenery, and the general neatness and decency of the place itself. ...   Everything shows a direction towards ... an improving civilization."    
 
Upon arrival, we tour Hyde Hall, an 1800's neoclassic country mansion with a commanding view of Otsego Lake, which is a stunning reminder of by-gone days.  This 50-room mansion is a National Historic Landmark and is on the National Historic Register.    
 
The Glimmerglass Opera came into being through the efforts of local Cooperstown residents - musicians, artists, educators and amateur lovers of the art form - who wanted to bring opera to their community.  The newly-founded company presented its first season in the summer of 1975, and it has grown to become one of American's most significant opera companies renowned for the high quality and the adventurous spirit of its productions.  This season the Glimmerglass Opera is exploring operas inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.  After lunch we hear a talk by a member of the Glimmerglass Opera's artistic staff, discussing today's production.  We have matinee tickets for a performance of Cristoph Willibald Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice, written in 1774.  In his time Gluck set opera on a new course, forgoing the virtuosic vocal display of his day in favor of simple, affecting music that is still striking in its natural emotion and classical era elegance.  Orpheus is cast as an ordinary man suffering at the hands of fickle gods, yet eventually triumphing over destruction and death.  Almost a century later, after Offenbach's irreverent Orpheus In The Underworld had caused a sensation, Hector Berlioz, the bad-boy genius of the Romantic Era, took Gluck's masterpiece and re-orchestrated it, while retaining its original intimacy and simplicity.  This is the version we see this afternoon.    
 
Following the performance there is free time to explore Cooperstown.  Visitors are able to navigate the town by the Trolley System featuring four old-fashioned trolleys that carry visitors to Main Street and the museums.  They are a tourist attraction in their own right and have been widely embraced as the best way to travel around Cooperstown. This evening we have dinner in Cooperstown before checking in at our hotel, the Holiday Inn in nearby Oneonta.  (B) (D)  



4.  Monday, July 23     Glimmerglass
This morning we have a backstage tour of the Glimmerglass Opera House (tbc).  We visit one of the nation's premier art institutions, the Fenimore Art Museum, which is home to an exceptionally rich collection of American folk art and American Indian art as well as important holdings in American decorative arts, photography, and twentieth-century art.  Displayed in elegant buildings overlooking Otsego Lake, the Museum collections are remarkable both for their breathtaking beauty and for the glimpse they give us of life in earlier times.    
 
Again, we have free time in Cooperstown.  Why not visit the Baseball hall of Fame, in the heart of the town?   The newly-renovated museum brings baseball's glorious history to life through interactive exhibits and emotional stories.  The museum features the hallowed Hall of Fame Gallery, honoring the game's greatest players, as well as countless exhibits and statistical information for fans of all ages.    
 
Our second production at the Glimmerglass Opera is a matinee performance of Orphée, written by Philip Glass inspired by Jean Cocteau's mysterious 1949 film.  Philip Glass brings a unique voice to Cocteau's meditation on the life of an artist.  His minimalist style of composition lays bare intense emotion, underscoring the haunting story of the journey to that unknown realm between life and death by the poet Orphée, who seeks renewed inspiration and release from a deeply conflicted relationship with a rival poet and his own wife.  In this year of Philip Glass's 70th birthday, the Glimmerglass Opera not only presents the opera but shows the Jean Cocteau film that inspired it.    
 
Tonight we have our farewell dinner at the lovely Otesaga Inn, a grand resort hotel overlooking the shores of Lake Otesaga.  Located right in the village the Inn is an attraction in itself.  The Inn is reminiscent of a more genteel era when a gracious welcome was the standard and it continues to receive the coveted AAA Four Diamond Award for providing exceptional accommodations, fine dining and an elegant atmosphere.  It blends perfectly with Cooperstown's culturally rich repository of Americana, where the country's past is traced and preserved by its hometown cultural institutions.  (B) (D)  



5.  Tuesday, July 24     Storm Kings Art Center
This morning, following breakfast, we check out of the hotel and travel to Storm King Art Center.  Set on the west bank of the Hudson River, the museum celebrates the relationship between sculpture and nature.  Five hundred acres of landscaped lawns, fields and woodlands provide the site for postwar sculptures by internationally renowned artists.  At Storm King, the exhibition space is defined by sky and land.  Unencumbered by walls, the subtly created flow of space is punctuated by modern sculpture.  The grounds are surrounded by the undulating profiles of the Hudson Highlands, a dramatic panorama integral to the viewing experience.  The sculptures are affected by changes in light and weather, so no two visits are the same.  The focus of Storm King Art Center's distinguished permanent collection of American and European modern sculpture is on large abstract welded steel works from the 1960's to the present, although figurative works are also on view.  A core group of thirteen sculptures by David Smith anchor a collection of outstanding works by modern masters such as Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, and Louise Nevelson.  The Art Center also has superb works by many other contemporary sculptors, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alice Aycock, Mark di Suvero, Robert Grosvenor, Nam June Paik, and Ursula von Rydingsvard.  After lunch at a local restaurant with a view of the Hudson, we continue to New York where we arrive at approximately 4:00pm.  (B) (L)  





This engaging experience includes:

  • Private Motor coach transportation for duration of tour program
  • 2 nights at the Holiday Inn - Saratoga Springs
  • 2 nights at the Holiday Inn - Oneonta (Cooperstown)
  • Breakfast daily, 3 dinners, 2 lunches
  • 4 performance tickets: 2 New York City Ballet and 2 Glimmerglass Opera
  • Admissions to: Yadoo, National Museum of Dance, National Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame, Hyde Collection Art Museum, Fenimore Museum of Art, Hyde Hall and Storm King Art Center
  • Local service charges and taxes
  • Qualified guide throughout tour
PROGRAM PRICES  
Per person (double occupancy) from New York: $1,599.00  
Single Supplement: $325.00