6 Best Sights in The Finger Lakes, New York

The 200 acres of plants and trees adjacent to the Cornell University campus are primarily organized in collections—peonies, rock-garden species, rhododendrons, old-time vegetable and flower gardens, conifers, flowering crabapples, wildflowers. There's even a section for poisonous plants. The winter garden includes evergreens, conifers, and assorted plants with interesting cold-weather colors and textures. The complex's arboretum includes an area with sculptures. Walking and bus tours are available; call ahead for seasonal times. Some tours are free and others are $5.

Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in this study built for him by his sister-in-law and her husband. The octagonal shape was inspired by a Mississippi riverboat pilothouse. The study was moved to the Elmira College campus in the 1950s and is part of the school's Center for Mark Twain Studies. Cross the street to visit the (free) Mark Twain Exhibit to learn more about Twain's connection to Elmira or to buy books in the gift shop.

A multicultural approach helps children enjoy the fine arts through masks and puppets, ranging from English marionettes to Indonesian shadow puppets. Performances are given at 11 am on some Saturdays from October to April. The theater also has a storytelling series. Browse masks, puppets, and traditional wooden toys in the gift shop.

Why did reform movements flourish in the Finger Lakes? Many of the answers are at this museum, where narratives of water power, transportation, industry, and cultural history are interwoven to tell the story of 19th-century Seneca Falls. The museum has interactive exhibits for kids, who are urged to ask questions of tour guides.

At the corner of Mt. Hope and Reservoir avenues, a block west of the Lamberton Conservatory, is the squat Warner Castle. Headquarters of the Rochester Civic Garden Center, it has art exhibits and educational materials about gardening.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and a handful of other pioneers in the women's rights movement organized the first Women's Rights Convention in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls in 1848. Today, the park incorporates the site of the convention (the Wesleyan Chapel Declaration Park), a visitor center, and several off-site historic homes of key convention participants. Exhibits and an orientation film at the visitor center explore the development of the women's rights movement in the United States.