Maple Candy and Mountain Views

A memorable summer in Vermont

As many of you may know, my last travel article was a prompt, and one of the questions asked about the most fun things you’ve done on a trip. My mind of course went immediately to some of the hikes I’ve done recently, exploring incredible natural wonders. However, another thing also popped into my head: going to a charming apple cider and maple candy store in Vermont. TzeLin Sam was kind enough to encourage me to dedicate a story to that experience, so here I am.

A quick apology in advance — because this was a few years ago, the details may be a little fuzzier than in some of my other stories. But I’ll try my best to get the names and places as close as possible.

Prior to this trip, I’d never been to Vermont before. But since I had recently moved not too far away, I figured it was high time to go. I decided to mainly spend my time in the Waterbury/Stowe area, as it is an area known for its charming villages and mountain scenery. And I was not disappointed!

One day as I was driving in the countryside near Waterbury, I noticed a building that looked a bit like an old-fashioned general store. I pulled in to take a look around. It turned out that it was a cider mill that also had sweets and baked goods.

The moment I stepped inside, it was like some sort of olfactory paradise. The air was perfumed with the scent of maple and apples. I spent close to an hour looking around and also having free samples of their apple cider, which was amazing.

I ended up purchasing a few different types of maple candies (below left photo — as you can see, they were only 20 cents a piece!) and also getting a maple creemee. That’s soft serve ice cream flavored with fresh maple syrup, and it’s apparently a Vermont specialty. Suffice it to say, it was delicious.

On the other hand, the photo on the right is from a less satisfactory ice cream experience that I had a couple days later. The Ben & Jerry’s factory is in Waterbury, and I was initially pretty excited to stop by. I thought it would be a chance to try some flavors I’d never had before and maybe see a little bit of the factory. I was wrong. In my opinion, it was super overrated, as I spent a long time standing in line only to get to the counter and realize I’d tried all the flavors they offered before. I also didn’t go on a tour (I can’t remember whether this was because it was overpriced, or because they didn’t have tickets left). And though the graveyard for their discontinued flavors was funny, I wouldn’t say it worth going just for that.

That being said, I know some people who really loved going there. So I guess it just depends on what you’re looking for. As someone who doesn’t enjoy touristy places and long lines, I probably should have known better than to go. Anyway…

Stowe was just as beautiful as Waterbury, if not more beautiful. And although I wasn’t staying at the famous Trapp Family Lodge (rooms are hundreds of dollars a night), I did visit and walk around the grounds. The von Trapps are the family that inspired The Sound of Music, and in real life just as in the musical, they escaped the Nazis in Austria and eventually came to the United States. Because of this, the lodge is reminiscent of buildings you might see in the Austrian Alps.

From the grounds of the lodge, you also get a lovely view of the mountains, which you can see in my featured image at the top of the article. I remember it being very quiet and peaceful — there weren’t many other people around, perhaps because it was fairly hot the day I was there. Dainty wildflowers dotted the meadow, and beyond that, the rolling mountain vistas stood in layers, the kind that almost look two-dimensional like a painting. I could definitely see why a family from Austria would seek out this particular spot; though the mountains are much smaller than the Alps, it might have seemed like a miniature version of their former home in Salzburg.

Have you ever visited Vermont or tried a maple creemee? Let me know in the comments!

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