VERMONT MAP

THINGS TO DO

INFORMATION SOURCES

 

CENTRAL VERMONT SEE & DO

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory - Begin your tour with a 7-minute "moovie" shown in the Cow Over The Moon Theater. Discover how two childhood friends, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, turned a $5 correspondence course on ice cream-making into a very successful business. From there, move to the mezzanine, to get a bird's-eye view of "Vermont's Finest" in action and an explanation of the ice cream manufacturing process. Then it's off to the FlavoRoom for delicious samples of the day! Visit the 'scoop shop,' featuring 30-40 euphoric flavors, & the gift shop packed with lots of cool stuff. The top 10 favorite flavors are: Cherry Garcia® Ice Cream, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, Chocolate Fudge Brownie™ Ice Cream, New York Super Fudge Chunk® Ice Cream, Half Baked™ 2-Twisted™ Ice Cream, Phish Food® Ice Cream, Cherry Garcia® Frozen Yogurt, Chunky Monkey® Ice Cream, World's Best® Vanilla Ice Cream, Chocolate Fudge Brownie™ Frozen Yogurt. Have you tried them?

Cold Hollow Cider Mill - Come and see cider that's still made the old-fashioned way, with a rack and cloth press built in the 1920s. After you have seen cider made, wander through the large retail store and check out many of the specialty foods. Bring your appetite and sample jellies, mustards, applesauce, fudge, and other goodies. In the summer, watch real bees make honey in the honey corner (don't worry, they're behind glass). Honeybees are responsible for pollinating the apple orchards each spring while they are in bloom to ensure a "well set" crop.

Rock of Ages Granite Quarry & Visitor's Center - Quarrying has been in these hills since the early 1800s. Barre granite has a variety of uses from buildings to monuments to commercial platforms. The granite vein here is 2 to 4 miles wide and 8 to 10 miles deep. Visit the craftsman's center where granite is cut, carved and polished. At the Visitor’s Center, take a few minutes and view the video which discusses the properties of granite that make it so important. Choose a special gift from many fine-quality granite pieces and stone-related gifts from all over the world.

Mount Hope Cemetery - Each year visitors from all over the world tour Hope cemetery in Barre, Vermont to see some of the finest examples of memorial design and granite craftsmanship ever produced. Situated in the "Granite Capital of the World," Hope cemetery presents a rich and distinguished history of memorial art in stone, one of the oldest expressions of American culture. For these reasons, Hope exerts a profound influence on the memorial art of other cemeteries throughout the country.

Vermont Marble Exhibit - Enter the exhibit, guarded by a large archway made of giant marble blocks, looking suspiciously like the entrance to the town of Bedrock. But be prepared as you step into the main entry hall. You’ll be greeted by polished panels of Vermont marble, from Verde Antique - a stunning green stone - to Champlain Black - a black marble that still contains fossils - to Imperial Danby - the bright white marble that Vermont is famous for. A continuously running 11-minute movie covers the history of the Vermont Marble Company. It tells how its founder, an ambitious politician, used his leverage as a U.S. Senator to ensure that several structures, like the U.S. Supreme Court Building and Jefferson Memorial, were constructed of Vermont marble. Other interesting exhibits are the Geology Room with its "Living Earth" exhibit, and the Geological/Historical Room with its pictures of early quarrying methods. Learn how to distinguish a white marble from a green marble, from a far-off cousin, granite. A favorite exhibit is the Marbles of the World - an entire room lined with gigantic panels of marbles from all corners of the earth - from the powder-puff Champion Pink found in Tennessee to the almost biological-looking terra cotta-colored Ramello Rosso from Italy. Should you want to take something home, the gift shop is full of marble lamps, cutting boards and the like.