In Transit Blog: A Celebration of Fermentation

"Fermentation is transformation, whether it's from grain to beer, or cabbage to kimchi, or one sort of community to another," said Donna Neuwirth, the founder with her partner, Jay Salinas, of the Fermentation Fest — A Live Culture Convergence in Reedsburg, Wis.

From Oct. 4 through 13, festivalgoers can pick and choose from two weekends of food-fermentation classes; advice on beekeeping and vermiculture; and lectures like "Cultivating Your Dream Livelihood" and "So, You Bought a Farm. Now What?" The MacArthur-winning food activist Gary Paul Nabhan will speak on "Fermenting a Revolution of Human Health, Soil Health and Community" on Oct. 6; Nikiko Masumoto, an agrarian artist and organic peach farmer, will teach a storytelling workshop on Oct. 13.

Visitors can also drive or bike the Farm/Art DTour, a 50-mile self-guided excursion through the hills of Sauk County, an hour north of Madison, punctuated by art installations, roadside culture stands, field notes and pasture performances. And D-Composition, on Oct. 5, features the string ensemble Graminy in "Germinations, a Blue Grass Symphony in D."

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Pursuits: A Presidential Pub Crawl

Rick Friedman for The New York Times

Both President Reagan and a campaigning Bill Clinton stopped by the Eire Pub in Dorchester, Mass.

Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Clinton walked into a bar. This is no joke. The bar is Martin's Tavern in Washington, and it serves an above-average pot roast.

Connect With Us on Twitter

Follow @nytimestravel for tips, features and photography from all over the globe.

Matt Roth for The New York Times

John Boswell, a veteran bartender at Off the Record in Washington, D.C., recalls seeing George H. W. Bush and his son, then the governor of Texas, at the bar.

This isn't the only bar patronized by American presidents, of course. Curious about others, we visited more than a dozen East Coast places that lay claim to a presidential past. Half history lesson, half goose chase, our journey took us to a number of joints that walk a fine line between celebrating their past and wearing presidential celebrity on their sleeve — and those that achieve that balance deserve a visit.

MARTIN'S TAVERN Serving first families and everyday Georgetown denizens since 1933, Martin's boasts visits by every United States president since Harry S. Truman, except for the nation's current one, all before they were commander in chief.

Mismatched Tiffany-style lamps hang above an original mahogany bar. Weathered wooden booths envelop patrons dining on President Richard M. Nixon's favored meatloaf or President Truman's preferred pot roast. For a uniquely Martin's experience, visitors can sit in the Rumble Seat, the one-seated, one-sided booth No. 11, where President John F. Kennedy regularly took breakfast and read the paper while in Congress. The Proposal Booth, booth No. 3, is curiously one of two tables we encountered on our trip that is named as the site of Kennedy's engagement to Jacqueline Bouvier. "We're not going to say it didn't not happen here," was the fourth-generation owner Billy A. Martin Jr.'s circuitous account of the proposal.

If the dining room is packed, retreat to the "dugout room," a cozy cavern where President Lyndon B. Johnson sipped his favorite cocktail, Scotch and soda, while conspiring alongside House Speaker Sam Rayburn in booth No. 24. Today, Martin's seats fewer politicians. But that didn't stop Mr. Martin from urging Teresa Heinz Kerry to bring in her husband, Secretary of State John Kerry, for a taste of tradition leading up to the 2004 presidential election.

"It has always been good luck," Mr. Martin said. As for Mr. Kerry, he never did make it.

1264 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington; (202) 333-7370; martins-tavern.com.

THE TOMBS Not far from Martin's is this discreet Georgetown cellar, where President Bill Clinton, as a Georgetown undergraduate, joined classmates for beer and burgers, steps from his M Street dorm. In his autobiography, "My Life," he identifies the Tombs, a bunker of a bar beneath Georgetown's swanky 1789 restaurant, as a former haunt. Pitchers hang above a large square bar, awaiting refill from a bow-tie-clad, student-aged staff. Barside engravings pay homage to a lineage of barkeeps. President Clinton would no doubt approve of the current scene, where a good meal can still be had for under $15, and Georgetown students continue to take refuge from the city above.

1226 36th Street NW, Washington; (202) 337-6668; tombs.com.

THE ROUND ROBIN BAR AT THE WILLARD INTERCONTINENTAL At this hotel — the self-proclaimed Residence of Presidents — folklore has Ulysses S. Grant coining the term "lobbyists" as a label for those who loitered after him in the Willard's lobby (never mind references to the verb "lobbying" from before the Willard opened its doors). Order a drink in the lobby, as those supposed petitioners did near Grant, and watch the post-theater crowd parade in.

1401 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington; (202) 628-9100; intercontinental.com.

OFF THE RECORD AT THE HAY-ADAMS Our last stop in the District was a secluded alternative to the more flamboyant Willard. Overlooking 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the 144-room Hay-Adams hotel was the home of President Obama and his family in the weeks before he took office and may be the closest most people can get to sleeping in the White House. However, in a quiet basement lounge, visitors might find a future leader of the free world just trying to unwind. The bar is Off the Record, and John Boswell, a veteran bartender there, has served every president since Gerald R. Ford, before or after they became president. Its crimson, button-backed benches tuck into the walls to afford clientele sanctuary in which, as the bar's Web site puts it, they can "be seen and not heard."

Mr. Boswell, the affable and tight-lipped weeknight bartender, would reveal not a single utterance he's heard in 16 years at the bar. He wouldn't even say how many presidents he's served in the bar itself versus the hotel at large. But Mr. Boswell did offer some reminiscences. He recalled the "sweet" sight of George H. W. Bush and his son, then the governor of Texas, at the bar, going largely unnoticed. President Clinton would duck in between fund-raisers at the hotel above, Mr. Boswell recalled, sipping sauvignon blanc barside. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was said to be a more frequent visitor when she was serving in the Senate, but you didn't hear it from him.

Amid the dark red walls, political caricatures and low lighting that have kept this bar's White House crowd shrouded in mystery, finish the day with an apropos Presidential — a vodka martini with blue-cheese olives. "We like to stick to the classics," Mr. Boswell said. "John McCain doesn't want a razzle-dazzle martini."

800 16th Street NW, Washington; (202) 638-6600; hayadams.com.

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Next Stop: Looking for Big Flavors in a Small New Mexico Town

You know you're in for something good when a man with a tiny plastic spoon asks conspiratorially: "Have you tried the cherries jubilee? It's what got me into the biz."

Alotta Gelato is a typical small-town ice cream shop: rumbling freezer compressor, giddy barefoot kids, board games stacked in a corner. But its product is on a higher level, made from ingredients like sweet-tart Italian amarena cherries. It's just one reason I love Silver City, a town of about 10,000 in southwestern New Mexico.

Silver, as it's known, has recently become a road-trip destination among those willing to drive for a good meal. But it's no overnight sensation. Alotta Gelato's Mitchell Hellman, the man with the spoon, celebrated the store's 10-year anniversary last month, and a couple of other great restaurants have been around just as long.

Silver began as a mining town in 1870, hippies came a century later, and newer artists have since arrived and added their own flourishes, like candy-colored paint jobs on the stately cast-iron facades downtown. The food scene is an extension of this creativity, and it prizes local ingredients — farmers' market tomatoes can sell out in 35 minutes — as well as excellent imported ones like Mr. Hellman's cherries. This isn't because it's trendy, but because Silver City's isolation — the town backs up against the 2.7-million-acre Gila National Forest, and it's 45 miles to an Interstate — inspires chefs to build their own world.

As a guidebook author, I had been to Silver several times, but was always too rushed to savor the place. Last spring, over the course of four days, my mother, Beverly McFarland, and I ate our way around town and checked up on some new developments. Chief among those is the Murray Hotel, which reopened last summer after being boarded up for more than 20 years. In 1938, the hotel signaled modernity with its solid concrete architecture, glass bricks and porthole windows. Now the front doors were open to the street, and the black terrazzo lobby floor gleamed as if it was laid yesterday.

"Oh, you have my favorite room!" the desk clerk exclaimed as she handed over our key cards. From our window on the fourth floor, I could see the place we'd be having dinner, and I briefly worried that I had planned too much eating and not enough exercise. Downtown Silver City is only about half a mile long.

Jake Politte opens his restaurant, 1zero6, three nights a week. Savvy regulars know to check the short but intense menu online Thursday morning, then call to put dibs on entrees like pork loin bathed in bitter chocolate, Mexican chiles and Thai fish sauce. We tucked into crispy-custardy Cambodian mini-pancakes and "Sichuan ravioli" — gingery dumplings in a chunky tomato sauce. Mr. Politte's eclectic culinary taste is echoed in the restaurant's décor, in which a billboard-size Bollywood poster faces an Indonesian wood skeleton.

As we finished a fruit tart lined with a slick of bitter chocolate, Mr. Politte, tattoos swirling down his arms, came out to relight the candles on his Buddhist shrine. He told us how he'd arrived in Silver from the Bay Area a decade earlier. He'd been looking for a remnant of the New Mexico he'd known in Santa Fe after high school, in the early 1970s, "back when it was just cowboys and Indians and hippies." Mr. Politte found a little of that rough-around-the-edges atmosphere here.

He relishes introducing customers to new flavors — fresh banana blossoms, say, which he scored from a grocer in Tucson. Or chapulines (grasshoppers), brought to him by a customer from Oaxaca. "People say, 'Whoa, that's scary,' " he related with glee, "and I say, 'No, man, it's food.' "

The next day, we walked the trails on Boston Hill in town, starting behind old cottages and winding up past the long-abandoned silver mines that gave the city its name. In the wilderness at the top, we rested on an incongruous turquoise blue bench. Below us, Silver's core looked tidy and timeless. The town founders were determined to make a lasting place, unlike other slapdash mining camps. So up rose grand limestone, brick and cast-iron edifices. They weathered the crash of the silver market, two flash floods and the collapse of downtown commerce that beset so many small American towns. Now that sturdy shell fosters creativity — including our next meals.

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3 Favorite Journeys on a Bike

Doreen Carvajal; Agnes Dherbeys for The New York Times; Stewart Cairns for The New York Times

Left to right: the Great Western Greenway in Ireland, an evening Fat Tire Bike Tour in Paris and a trail near Burlington, Vt.

For many cyclists, riding a bike is a kind of heaven. You're simply a body breathing clean air and having very few thoughts. That's the meditative side. It does not hurt that the sport is kind to the knees. That's the non-load-bearing, exertive side. Then there are the fans who like to mosey, the leisurely bike riders. No spandex or clocking speed for them. They don't pay attention to the miles. It's just the wind in their faces, and the tranquillity and peace that they feel. With the advent of fall, three writers tell us about their favorite bike journeys, from a beloved route along rolling fields and Lake Champlain in Vermont and upstate New York to a ride in the wild green countryside of western Ireland and a night ride in Paris.

'Road Closed'? Not to Me.

A "Road Closed" sign is always a gamble on a bike ride. Ignore it and be rewarded with miles of tranquil, car-free riding. Usually the road damage is passable on a bike. Then there are the days when a dead end forces a retreat and a detour.

That was the choice we confronted in the lush foothills of the Adirondacks in New York. The sign blocked a scenic alternative to miles of riding on the shoulder of State Highway 22. Beyond it, a smooth dirt road passed beneath a ceiling of maple and hemlock branches that tinted the summer light green. After a brief consultation with my friend and riding partner, Sean Luitjens, we wheeled around the sign.

"I hope we don't regret this," I said.

Even without this hiccup, our trip around the midsection of Lake Champlain, which separates Vermont from New York, involved more logistical wizardry than usual. It would take three ferry rides to complete the seven-hour, 78-mile loop that began at my house in the college town of Burlington, Vt.

We started the ride cycling south, past suburban housing tracts into hills carpeted with hayfields, punctuated by the occasional McMansion and Vermont clapboard farmhouse. A swoop down to Lake Champlain and across the wooden slats of an 1870s-era covered bridge brought us to a ferry connecting quaint Charlotte, Vt., to the little lakefront town of Essex, N.Y.

A few miles north of Essex, Highway 22 kicked up for three strenuous miles. As it flattened, we came to Highland Road and that "closed" sign.

Stewart Cairns for The New York Times

Bicycles at rest on a trail near Burlington, Vt.

Once past it we rollercoastered up and down hills through a smorgasbord of classic views: a wooded pond, farmland and meadows with Lake Champlain in the distance, a weathered barn leaning on a massive, gnarled maple tree, and a cemetery with a sign declaring it open since 1812.

We reached the damaged section that prompted the road's closure. A chunk of the road had fallen into a creek, but more than half the pavement remained. Our gamble at the sign had paid off. We strolled across the gap and remounted our bikes. I pedaled away with extra verve, thrilled at having successfully thumbed my nose at the warning. As we reached Highway 9, there was another reward: a dizzying view of Ausable Chasm, where the Ausable River roars over a series of waterfalls. We skipped the advertised float trips and rappelling, taking it in from a bridge spanning the gorge.

We then sped down the flat highway, reunited with Lake Champlain and steered into Plattsburgh, a town of 20,000 that's home to a state college and a paper mill. That's where we lost our second gamble. We had planned to eat there. But on a Sunday at 11:30 a.m., the downtown looked abandoned. Sunday brunch apparently wasn't a popular meal. We resorted to a diner on the outskirts of town, where the hash browns resembled elongated Tater Tots, and the pancakes came with corn syrup — a crime for any self-respecting Vermonter.

The dining disappointment was rinsed away on a ferry ride under a blue sky to Grand Isle, one in a chain of long, narrow islands in northern Lake Champlain. My legs now aching, we headed down the island's western flank on a dirt road smooth enough for our narrow-tired road bikes. We passed vacation cottages, farmhouses, a winery and beaches. Soon, a steady flow of cyclists streamed by the other way. We were approaching the final boat ride.

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In Transit Blog: A Celebration of Fermentation

"Fermentation is transformation, whether it's from grain to beer, or cabbage to kimchi, or one sort of community to another," said Donna Neuwirth, the founder with her partner, Jay Salinas, of the Fermentation Fest — A Live Culture Convergence in Reedsburg, Wis.

From Oct. 4 through 13, festivalgoers can pick and choose from two weekends of food-fermentation classes; advice on beekeeping and vermiculture; and lectures like "Cultivating Your Dream Livelihood" and "So, You Bought a Farm. Now What?" The MacArthur-winning food activist Gary Paul Nabhan will speak on "Fermenting a Revolution of Human Health, Soil Health and Community" on Oct. 6; Nikiko Masumoto, an agrarian artist and organic peach farmer, will teach a storytelling workshop on Oct. 13.

Visitors can also drive or bike the Farm/Art DTour, a 50-mile self-guided excursion through the hills of Sauk County, an hour north of Madison, punctuated by art installations, roadside culture stands, field notes and pasture performances. And D-Composition, on Oct. 5, features the string ensemble Graminy in "Germinations, a Blue Grass Symphony in D."

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Pursuits: A Presidential Pub Crawl

Rick Friedman for The New York Times

Both President Reagan and a campaigning Bill Clinton stopped by the Eire Pub in Dorchester, Mass.

Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Clinton walked into a bar. This is no joke. The bar is Martin's Tavern in Washington, and it serves an above-average pot roast.

Connect With Us on Twitter

Follow @nytimestravel for tips, features and photography from all over the globe.

Matt Roth for The New York Times

John Boswell, a veteran bartender at Off the Record in Washington, D.C., recalls seeing George H. W. Bush and his son, then the governor of Texas, at the bar.

This isn't the only bar patronized by American presidents, of course. Curious about others, we visited more than a dozen East Coast places that lay claim to a presidential past. Half history lesson, half goose chase, our journey took us to a number of joints that walk a fine line between celebrating their past and wearing presidential celebrity on their sleeve — and those that achieve that balance deserve a visit.

MARTIN'S TAVERN Serving first families and everyday Georgetown denizens since 1933, Martin's boasts visits by every United States president since Harry S. Truman, except for the nation's current one, all before they were commander in chief.

Mismatched Tiffany-style lamps hang above an original mahogany bar. Weathered wooden booths envelop patrons dining on President Richard M. Nixon's favored meatloaf or President Truman's preferred pot roast. For a uniquely Martin's experience, visitors can sit in the Rumble Seat, the one-seated, one-sided booth No. 11, where President John F. Kennedy regularly took breakfast and read the paper while in Congress. The Proposal Booth, booth No. 3, is curiously one of two tables we encountered on our trip that is named as the site of Kennedy's engagement to Jacqueline Bouvier. "We're not going to say it didn't not happen here," was the fourth-generation owner Billy A. Martin Jr.'s circuitous account of the proposal.

If the dining room is packed, retreat to the "dugout room," a cozy cavern where President Lyndon B. Johnson sipped his favorite cocktail, Scotch and soda, while conspiring alongside House Speaker Sam Rayburn in booth No. 24. Today, Martin's seats fewer politicians. But that didn't stop Mr. Martin from urging Teresa Heinz Kerry to bring in her husband, Secretary of State John Kerry, for a taste of tradition leading up to the 2004 presidential election.

"It has always been good luck," Mr. Martin said. As for Mr. Kerry, he never did make it.

1264 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington; (202) 333-7370; martins-tavern.com.

THE TOMBS Not far from Martin's is this discreet Georgetown cellar, where President Bill Clinton, as a Georgetown undergraduate, joined classmates for beer and burgers, steps from his M Street dorm. In his autobiography, "My Life," he identifies the Tombs, a bunker of a bar beneath Georgetown's swanky 1789 restaurant, as a former haunt. Pitchers hang above a large square bar, awaiting refill from a bow-tie-clad, student-aged staff. Barside engravings pay homage to a lineage of barkeeps. President Clinton would no doubt approve of the current scene, where a good meal can still be had for under $15, and Georgetown students continue to take refuge from the city above.

1226 36th Street NW, Washington; (202) 337-6668; tombs.com.

THE ROUND ROBIN BAR AT THE WILLARD INTERCONTINENTAL At this hotel — the self-proclaimed Residence of Presidents — folklore has Ulysses S. Grant coining the term "lobbyists" as a label for those who loitered after him in the Willard's lobby (never mind references to the verb "lobbying" from before the Willard opened its doors). Order a drink in the lobby, as those supposed petitioners did near Grant, and watch the post-theater crowd parade in.

1401 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington; (202) 628-9100; intercontinental.com.

OFF THE RECORD AT THE HAY-ADAMS Our last stop in the District was a secluded alternative to the more flamboyant Willard. Overlooking 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the 144-room Hay-Adams hotel was the home of President Obama and his family in the weeks before he took office and may be the closest most people can get to sleeping in the White House. However, in a quiet basement lounge, visitors might find a future leader of the free world just trying to unwind. The bar is Off the Record, and John Boswell, a veteran bartender there, has served every president since Gerald R. Ford, before or after they became president. Its crimson, button-backed benches tuck into the walls to afford clientele sanctuary in which, as the bar's Web site puts it, they can "be seen and not heard."

Mr. Boswell, the affable and tight-lipped weeknight bartender, would reveal not a single utterance he's heard in 16 years at the bar. He wouldn't even say how many presidents he's served in the bar itself versus the hotel at large. But Mr. Boswell did offer some reminiscences. He recalled the "sweet" sight of George H. W. Bush and his son, then the governor of Texas, at the bar, going largely unnoticed. President Clinton would duck in between fund-raisers at the hotel above, Mr. Boswell recalled, sipping sauvignon blanc barside. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was said to be a more frequent visitor when she was serving in the Senate, but you didn't hear it from him.

Amid the dark red walls, political caricatures and low lighting that have kept this bar's White House crowd shrouded in mystery, finish the day with an apropos Presidential — a vodka martini with blue-cheese olives. "We like to stick to the classics," Mr. Boswell said. "John McCain doesn't want a razzle-dazzle martini."

800 16th Street NW, Washington; (202) 638-6600; hayadams.com.

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Next Stop: Looking for Big Flavors in a Small New Mexico Town

You know you're in for something good when a man with a tiny plastic spoon asks conspiratorially: "Have you tried the cherries jubilee? It's what got me into the biz."

Alotta Gelato is a typical small-town ice cream shop: rumbling freezer compressor, giddy barefoot kids, board games stacked in a corner. But its product is on a higher level, made from ingredients like sweet-tart Italian amarena cherries. It's just one reason I love Silver City, a town of about 10,000 in southwestern New Mexico.

Silver, as it's known, has recently become a road-trip destination among those willing to drive for a good meal. But it's no overnight sensation. Alotta Gelato's Mitchell Hellman, the man with the spoon, celebrated the store's 10-year anniversary last month, and a couple of other great restaurants have been around just as long.

Silver began as a mining town in 1870, hippies came a century later, and newer artists have since arrived and added their own flourishes, like candy-colored paint jobs on the stately cast-iron facades downtown. The food scene is an extension of this creativity, and it prizes local ingredients — farmers' market tomatoes can sell out in 35 minutes — as well as excellent imported ones like Mr. Hellman's cherries. This isn't because it's trendy, but because Silver City's isolation — the town backs up against the 2.7-million-acre Gila National Forest, and it's 45 miles to an Interstate — inspires chefs to build their own world.

As a guidebook author, I had been to Silver several times, but was always too rushed to savor the place. Last spring, over the course of four days, my mother, Beverly McFarland, and I ate our way around town and checked up on some new developments. Chief among those is the Murray Hotel, which reopened last summer after being boarded up for more than 20 years. In 1938, the hotel signaled modernity with its solid concrete architecture, glass bricks and porthole windows. Now the front doors were open to the street, and the black terrazzo lobby floor gleamed as if it was laid yesterday.

"Oh, you have my favorite room!" the desk clerk exclaimed as she handed over our key cards. From our window on the fourth floor, I could see the place we'd be having dinner, and I briefly worried that I had planned too much eating and not enough exercise. Downtown Silver City is only about half a mile long.

Jake Politte opens his restaurant, 1zero6, three nights a week. Savvy regulars know to check the short but intense menu online Thursday morning, then call to put dibs on entrees like pork loin bathed in bitter chocolate, Mexican chiles and Thai fish sauce. We tucked into crispy-custardy Cambodian mini-pancakes and "Sichuan ravioli" — gingery dumplings in a chunky tomato sauce. Mr. Politte's eclectic culinary taste is echoed in the restaurant's décor, in which a billboard-size Bollywood poster faces an Indonesian wood skeleton.

As we finished a fruit tart lined with a slick of bitter chocolate, Mr. Politte, tattoos swirling down his arms, came out to relight the candles on his Buddhist shrine. He told us how he'd arrived in Silver from the Bay Area a decade earlier. He'd been looking for a remnant of the New Mexico he'd known in Santa Fe after high school, in the early 1970s, "back when it was just cowboys and Indians and hippies." Mr. Politte found a little of that rough-around-the-edges atmosphere here.

He relishes introducing customers to new flavors — fresh banana blossoms, say, which he scored from a grocer in Tucson. Or chapulines (grasshoppers), brought to him by a customer from Oaxaca. "People say, 'Whoa, that's scary,' " he related with glee, "and I say, 'No, man, it's food.' "

The next day, we walked the trails on Boston Hill in town, starting behind old cottages and winding up past the long-abandoned silver mines that gave the city its name. In the wilderness at the top, we rested on an incongruous turquoise blue bench. Below us, Silver's core looked tidy and timeless. The town founders were determined to make a lasting place, unlike other slapdash mining camps. So up rose grand limestone, brick and cast-iron edifices. They weathered the crash of the silver market, two flash floods and the collapse of downtown commerce that beset so many small American towns. Now that sturdy shell fosters creativity — including our next meals.

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3 Favorite Journeys on a Bike

Doreen Carvajal; Agnes Dherbeys for The New York Times; Stewart Cairns for The New York Times

Left to right: the Great Western Greenway in Ireland, an evening Fat Tire Bike Tour in Paris and a trail near Burlington, Vt.

For many cyclists, riding a bike is a kind of heaven. You're simply a body breathing clean air and having very few thoughts. That's the meditative side. It does not hurt that the sport is kind to the knees. That's the non-load-bearing, exertive side. Then there are the fans who like to mosey, the leisurely bike riders. No spandex or clocking speed for them. They don't pay attention to the miles. It's just the wind in their faces, and the tranquillity and peace that they feel. With the advent of fall, three writers tell us about their favorite bike journeys, from a beloved route along rolling fields and Lake Champlain in Vermont and upstate New York to a ride in the wild green countryside of western Ireland and a night ride in Paris.

'Road Closed'? Not to Me.

A "Road Closed" sign is always a gamble on a bike ride. Ignore it and be rewarded with miles of tranquil, car-free riding. Usually the road damage is passable on a bike. Then there are the days when a dead end forces a retreat and a detour.

That was the choice we confronted in the lush foothills of the Adirondacks in New York. The sign blocked a scenic alternative to miles of riding on the shoulder of State Highway 22. Beyond it, a smooth dirt road passed beneath a ceiling of maple and hemlock branches that tinted the summer light green. After a brief consultation with my friend and riding partner, Sean Luitjens, we wheeled around the sign.

"I hope we don't regret this," I said.

Even without this hiccup, our trip around the midsection of Lake Champlain, which separates Vermont from New York, involved more logistical wizardry than usual. It would take three ferry rides to complete the seven-hour, 78-mile loop that began at my house in the college town of Burlington, Vt.

We started the ride cycling south, past suburban housing tracts into hills carpeted with hayfields, punctuated by the occasional McMansion and Vermont clapboard farmhouse. A swoop down to Lake Champlain and across the wooden slats of an 1870s-era covered bridge brought us to a ferry connecting quaint Charlotte, Vt., to the little lakefront town of Essex, N.Y.

A few miles north of Essex, Highway 22 kicked up for three strenuous miles. As it flattened, we came to Highland Road and that "closed" sign.

Stewart Cairns for The New York Times

Bicycles at rest on a trail near Burlington, Vt.

Once past it we rollercoastered up and down hills through a smorgasbord of classic views: a wooded pond, farmland and meadows with Lake Champlain in the distance, a weathered barn leaning on a massive, gnarled maple tree, and a cemetery with a sign declaring it open since 1812.

We reached the damaged section that prompted the road's closure. A chunk of the road had fallen into a creek, but more than half the pavement remained. Our gamble at the sign had paid off. We strolled across the gap and remounted our bikes. I pedaled away with extra verve, thrilled at having successfully thumbed my nose at the warning. As we reached Highway 9, there was another reward: a dizzying view of Ausable Chasm, where the Ausable River roars over a series of waterfalls. We skipped the advertised float trips and rappelling, taking it in from a bridge spanning the gorge.

We then sped down the flat highway, reunited with Lake Champlain and steered into Plattsburgh, a town of 20,000 that's home to a state college and a paper mill. That's where we lost our second gamble. We had planned to eat there. But on a Sunday at 11:30 a.m., the downtown looked abandoned. Sunday brunch apparently wasn't a popular meal. We resorted to a diner on the outskirts of town, where the hash browns resembled elongated Tater Tots, and the pancakes came with corn syrup — a crime for any self-respecting Vermonter.

The dining disappointment was rinsed away on a ferry ride under a blue sky to Grand Isle, one in a chain of long, narrow islands in northern Lake Champlain. My legs now aching, we headed down the island's western flank on a dirt road smooth enough for our narrow-tired road bikes. We passed vacation cottages, farmhouses, a winery and beaches. Soon, a steady flow of cyclists streamed by the other way. We were approaching the final boat ride.

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36 Hours in Reykjavik

The major news out of Iceland in recent years has not been good. First a banking collapse crippled the economy in 2008, and then a year and a half later, the volcanic eruption at Eyjafjallajokull halted air travel across the Atlantic and in Europe, frustrating millions. But signs of an upswing — economic and otherwise — can be spotted in Reykjavik, where this year the capital's impressive new concert hall won the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award, the European Union's top prize for contemporary architecture. In other parts of town, new restaurants are embracing fresh local fare, and the bacchanalian night life is thumping with a crop of new bars and clubs. This winter has been predicted to be a particularly favorable time to observe the aurora borealis dancing across the night sky, but already Reykjavik is shining.

FRIDAY

3:30 p.m.
1. Hallowed Halls

To get your bearings, take the elevator to the top of the austere Hallgrimskirkja, an imposing pale gray church whose distinctive stepped-slope facade frames a tower (admission, 700 kronur, or about $6 at 118 kronur to the dollar) from which a bird's-eye view of the city's colorful rooftops and compact downtown awaits. Then return to sea level to marvel at the city's newest architectural landmark: the Harpa concert hall, unveiled in May 2011, is a dazzling geometric structure that sits like a jewel on the waterfront. Home to Iceland's symphony orchestra and opera, Harpa is well worth a visit even if only to gaze through the honeycomb-like glass facade, designed in collaboration with the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.

5:30 p.m.
2. Records and Reels

A modest two-story house fronted with corrugated metal is where you'll find 12 Tonar, a small record store, listening room and gathering place for local musicians. The pocket-size shop often hosts live performances on Friday afternoons, with bands squeezed between bins and shelves in a setup reminiscent of NPR's Tiny Desk concerts. After the show, head downstairs to listen to any album from the ever-changing selection, which is as varied as the influences that fuel Iceland's experimental music scene. Prefer reels to records? Then stroll over to the cozy Bio Paradis, an independent four-screen cinema that opened in 2010 showing new movies, art-house flicks and Icelandic films (often with English subtitles), like the moving Sigur Ros documentary "Heima" about the band's 2006 series of free, unannounced concerts around Iceland.

8 p.m.
3. Icelandic Tapas

Dine on a parade of creative small plates at Forrettabarinn, a new restaurant near the harbor that hums with convivial chatter. Glowing pendant lamps and eclectic artworks brighten the industrial interior, where groups of friends gather around long wooden tables to graze on locally sourced hot smoked salmon and plump blue mussels. A highlight of a recent meal was a plate of buttery cod with crispy pork belly, chunks of chorizo and creamed parsnips (1,890 kronur), which was bested only by dessert: a parfait of skyr — an Icelandic yogurt-like dairy product — layered with cream and blueberries (1,390 kronur).

10 p.m.
4. Civilized Sips

Until 1989, most beers were banned in Iceland under an old prohibition law, so when it comes to beer drinking (and brewing), the country has a lot of catching up to do. Even today, craft brewing is just starting to catch on, which means it's feasible to sample beers from most of the domestic craft breweries in a single night. Start at the year-old Kaldi Bar, where there are several cozy nooks in which to sip a pint of caramel-tinged Kaldi dark. Then pull up a stool at MicroBar, an unassuming new pub hidden behind the lobby of the City Center Hotel, which has eight taps dedicated to Icelandic craft brews like Gaedingur Brugghus's hoppy IPA; a flight to taste all eight costs 3,500 kronur.

SATURDAY

8 a.m.
5. Waterfront Walk

Wake up with a walk along the waterfront path that winds northwest out of the city into the residential Seltjarnarnes area and toward the lighthouse on Grotta Island. With uninterrupted views of the majestic Esja mountain range across the water, it's an enjoyable two-mile trek to the tip of the peninsula. If you can't continue onto Grotta — it's reachable by foot only during low tide when a rocky, seaweed-strewn isthmus emerges — consider dipping your toes in the geothermal footbath (actually a sculpture by Olof Nordal called "Kvika") nestled among the rocks nearby.

11:30 a.m.
6. Waffles and Art

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Overnighter: On Martha’s Vineyard, Celebrating the Local Bounty

Dominic Chavez for The New York Times

Offerings at the West Tisbury Farmers' Market.

It was late August in Martha's Vineyard, a bright, sunny day perfect for a farmers' market. I arrived at 9 a.m. with Chris Fischer — chef, farmer, guy who knows everyone. Mr. Fischer, who grew up on a farm here and has had a job since he was 9, looks as if he grew up on a farm here and has had a job since he was 9. His dark, weathered skin, wrinkly eyes, graying beard and cracked, calloused hands belie a mere 33 years.

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Dominic Chavez for The New York Times

The chef Chris Fischer took over the kitchen recently at Beach Plum Inn and Restaurant on the island.

Mr. Fischer, a 12th-generation Islander, was here to shop for the evening's menu at Beach Plum Inn and Restaurant, where he took over the kitchen four months ago and where, as you may have heard, the Obamas recently had a date night ("lobster for him, mussels for her," according to Mr. Fischer). The farmers' market here in West Tisbury is small but serves two entirely different needs. The first is for vacationers: bouquets of zinnias, alpaca sweaters, gluten-free muffins, fresh ears of corn to throw on the rental house grill.

Then there's the market that only the farmers themselves see. In this one, the players know who has the best field greens or who had a rough year. They pay each other in trade as often as in cash. There's camaraderie and history and real friendship among them.

At the Whippoorwill Farm stand, Mr. Fischer grabbed more beets than any civilian could possibly need. Next, he hauled an armful of basil plants from a man whose hair could only be described as Bozo the Clown Goes Brunette. At the Tea Lane Farm stand, we stopped to inspect buckets of delicate, papery flowers being organized by a young, cherubic-looking woman. And finally, I was introduced to a farmer named Bob, who handed Mr. Fischer two bags of potatoes.

"Arrgh, sorry," Bob said. "I didn't bring any today."

"Bob makes his own hooch," Mr. Fischer explained. "He usually brings me a bottle."

Scratch the surface of any vacation town and you'll find the locals. But on Martha's Vineyard, which has long been a popular getaway for Northeasterners (it's only two and a half hours from Boston by car and ferry), local culture is particularly storied: farmers, cheesemakers, coffee roasters and fishermen who have established an ad hoc New England utopia. They know one another intimately, date one another occasionally, work the land, rarely go to the beach and keep to the area known as Up Island.

This pocket of Martha's Vineyard — actually the western side of the island — revolves around the towns of Chilmark and Menemsha. It's where resorts give way to pastures and farmland and wildlife. It's where you find centuries-old farms run by 28-year-olds, as well as lithe women, whom you might mistake for models or actresses in New York or Los Angeles, picking kale on bucolic 10-acre plots. It's a bohemia that's both real and not: on one hand, there are dairy farms and free-roaming turkeys and people who barter vegetables; on the other, Bill Clinton plays golf nearby and Seth Meyers just had his wedding here. (Mr. Fischer catered, Tea Lane Farm did the flowers, and so on.)

And Mr. Fischer, who runs the famed Beetlebung Farm and who recently returned to Martha's Vineyard to helm Beach Plum (in my opinion, the best restaurant the island has ever laid claim to) is at its center. But here's the trick: Mr. Fischer's insider world — the farms, the food, the storybook beauty — is wide open to the public. The farms have unmanned stands on their driveways where fresh produce is sold. (Just leave your money in the cash box; it's the honor system.) At Beetlebung Farm, you can actually cut your own flowers. Other spots, like Tea Lane Farm and North Tabor Farm, are not technically open to the public, but the proprietors are usually happy to let you meet the animals, especially this time of year, when the tourists drift back home and the island empties out.

Mr. Fischer's approach to food comes from his father, Albert. A former commercial fisherman, Albert (imagine an only slightly trimmer Wilford Brimley) taught his children to hunt, fish, forage and farm, all before they hit puberty. "We ate off the land," Albert said. "Living on this island, you eat well." And then, in a phrase that could be printed on every Beach Plum menu, he added: "Food should be simple and fresh and you should be able to see your ingredients."

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