As you come off the Mass Pike in the Berkshires, you’ll coast into an old mill town along the Housatonic River. Look closely and you’ll see signs of the marble quarries and paper mills that ran here for a hundred years and more, and the kind of downtown where you may find a quilt shop with sewing supplies and a three-generation family-run jewelry store alongside a Peruvian restaurant, a farm-to-tabe créperie and window full of a vintage hats.
From here, people come through town in all directions. You’ll find Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival a few miles to the east and Tanglewood a few miles North, the Appalachian Trail, October Mountain and Beartown State Forest …
A jersey calf nuzzles a friend at High Lawn Farm in Lee. Press image courtesy of High Lawn
Performers with Music from the Sole perform tap inflected with Brazilian rhythms. Press photo courtesy of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.
Jersey cows bask on a sunny day at High Lawn Farm in Lee. Press image courtesy of High Lawn
Irises and lilies bloom wild along the edge of the pond below Edith Wharton's gardens.
Pam Tworig looks out across Parsons Marsh in Lenox on a Berkshire Camino guided walk.
Berkshire Camino walkers stroll up the boardwalk at Parsons Marsh.
A fountain still plays in the gardens where the Gilded Age estate of Ashintully once stood.