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The Best Foliage Drives in New England

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(page 2 of 3)

At about the halfway point of this scenic tour, The Notchland Inn's Tudor-style roofline pokes up out of the colorful foliage of the 778,000-acre White Mountain National Forest. Turn up the drive and discover a refined retreat in the wilds of New Hampshire. The dining room serves a five-course meal most nights, and afterward you can relax with a book or work on a puzzle next to the Gustav Stickley fireplace.

For most of the remaining drive, the road parallels the Saco River and the Conway Scenic Railroad. In Bartlett, a side trip takes you along Bear Notch Road to several stellar viewpoints. Or continue on Route 302, looking for the slopes of the Attitash ski area. Take the Scenic Sky Ride, a chairlift that carries you to the top of the mountain, for stunning autumn views.

Back on the road, a southbound Scenic Railroad train whistles. The first billboards in 25 miles appear, and the number of businesses increases as the blacktop winds into Glen, North Conway, and Conway. Here there are myriad options for a bite to eat and a little shopping while still being able to see the mountains. End your tour by taking East Side Road through Conway's Saco River covered bridge before heading home. Or, if you haven't gotten enough of the mountains, complete a 110-mile loop by following the Kancamagus Highway (Route 112) back to Lincoln.

Connecticut: A Natural Gentility

As you drive along Route 169 in the eastern part of the state, it soon becomes clear why this section of Connecticut is called the Quiet Corner. This route, located just off I-395, offers 32 miles of pure, uninterrupted tranquillity.

In Lisbon, weathered-clapboard home-steads appear around every bend. Stone walls flank the road to the Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury. (Prudence Crandall was a prescient white woman who educated black girls from 1833 to 1834 before a club-wielding mob brought an end to her school.)

Back on Route 169, giant trees cast long shadows on faded red barns. The apple orchards and hiking and biking trails just off the road beckon.

Continuing on, you soon reach the town of Brooklyn, settled in the 1600s. Past the Brooklyn Fairgrounds, site of the oldest agricultural fair in the country, is a charming 18th-century bed-and-breakfast called the Friendship Valley Inn. Innkeepers Beverly and Rusty Yates greet guests with glasses of homemade iced tea.

For a special treat, visit The Golden Lamb Buttery, part of a 1,000-acre estate just off Route 169. Enjoy a late-afternoon hayride (you just might find a glass of Pinot Noir hand-delivered in a '53 Jaguar). For dinner, try the roast duckling -- the house specialty -- which is so tender it falls off the bone.

Twenty-six miles from the start of your trip, in Woodstock, stands Roseland Cottage, a resplendent raspberry sherbet-colored Gothic Revival house with maroon trim and dark-green shutters. The cottage was built by Henry Bowen, a local boy who moved to New York and struck it rich. He and his family returned to the cottage every summer, and their original furnishings are still on display here.

Massachusetts: Where Time Stands Still

If you could survey the generations of Cape Cod visitors and draw a composite picture from their most lasting impressions, the result would almost certainly be a sketch of Route 6A, Old King's Highway (named after the cart path that early settlers used to travel to and from Plymouth Colony). This section of the Cape is iconic and timeless, a single 40-mile canvas of demure white clapboards and weathered cedar shingles. You can see it in your mind's eye: the saltbox homes and sharp-steepled churches, the beaches lapped by placid surf, the vintage motel cottages, the ice-cream and fried seafood stands.