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.
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