The Garden Tourist’ Upper Hudson River Valley Tour

Featuring Wethersfield, Olana, Vanderbilt Mansion, Springwood Estate, Innisfree, The Mount, and more!

Sunday, June 4–Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Sunday, June 11–Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Itinerary

The Hudson Valley is a National Heritage Area that has inspired painters, poets, essayists, and novelists for centuries. For 150 miles, this pristine New York State destination offers leafy drives, historic estates, artist’s homes, gorgeous views and lush gardens.

DAY 1: We depart Framingham and head to the 24-acre Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, MA. Here you will enjoy 26 themed display gardens of perennials, annuals and bulbs that thrive in sun and shade. Enjoy the Children’s Garden, Herb Garden, Martha Stewart Cottage Garden, Rose Garden and more.

From there we will head to Lenox to visit The Mount, the summer estate of renowned author Edith Wharton. The stunning formal gardens feature a French Flower Garden, a walled Italianate garden, and gorgeous views of the Berkshires. We will have a guided tour of the house, see the gardens, and enjoy a box lunch on the terrace. From there we travel to Millbrook Vineyards & Winery to enjoy a wine tasting and then on to Hyatt Place Poughkeepsie to check in to our hotel. We end the day with a Welcome Dinner at The Heritage Food and Drink in Wappingers Falls (included.)

DAY 2: Our first stop will be Olana, the 19th century home of artist Frederic Church. Church was the leading painter of the Hudson River School, often called the first truly American style of painting. He was also a world traveller, self-taught architect and landscape designer, and created the magnificent Olana with its Moorish architecture and fantastic views of the river. We learn the story of Church’s life and how he came to build this wonderful mansion overlooking the Hudson. Our guided tour will take us on a trip through time, seeing a remarkably preserved home and picturesque grounds with amazing views.

Lunch is at the Creekside Restaurant in Catskill, before heading off to Clermont. Clermont State Historic Site was the Hudson River seat of New York’s politically and socially prominent Livingston family. Seven successive generations left their imprint on the site’s architecture, room interiors and landscape. We will tour the house which dates back to 1740, the historic gardens and grounds.

We then visit Montgomery Place the summer retreat of another branch of the Livingston family. The gardens here were designed by Violetta White Delafield, an accomplished horticulturist and mycologist who studied with some of the key botanists of the time. You will see historic perennial, herb and shade gardens nestled within a historic arboretum. Dinner is at the Terrapin restaurant in the charming town of Rhinebeck (included.)

Day 3: We begin the day at the opulent Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park. Built by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s grandson, this Gilded Age mansion is similar to the Newport mansions—a 54-room house ornately decorated with European antiques. The formal gardens reflect gardening styles of the late 1800s, with Victorian bedding, a rose garden and an Italian-style terraced garden all set within 200 acres of beautiful grounds overlooking the Hudson River. We will tour the home, and enjoy the gardens and grounds.

We spend the afternoon at the Springwood Estate, the birthplace, lifelong home, and burial place of the 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt. We will enjoy a guided tour of FDR’s elegant home, a box lunch, and wander through his beloved rose and vegetable gardens.

Then we will make our way to Bellefield, one of the earliest private gardens created by celebrated landscape designer Beatrix Farrand. Farrand’s work defined the American taste in gardens throughout the first half of the 20th century. She helped introduce the use of perennial plants in combinations based upon color harmony, bloom sequence and texture. This was the birth of the mixed border that is standard in gardens today. Dinner tonight will be at Brasserie 292 in Poughkeepsie, followed by a sunset cruise on the Hudson River.

DAY 4: Our morning begins with a visit to Innisfree Garden, a powerful icon of mid-twentieth century design. Innisfree merges the essence of Modernist ideas with traditional Chinese and Japanese garden design principles in a form that evolved through subtle handling of the landscape and slow manipulation of its ecology. The result is a sublime composition of rock, water, wood, and sky achieved with remarkable economy and grace.

Our second stop is Wethersfield for a tour and box lunch. Nestled in 1,000 acres of beautiful rolling hills, Wethersfield is one of the best examples of a classic Italian Renaissance garden in America. The 3-acre formal garden is designed with clipped hedges, a strong central axis, allées, terraces, and statuary. Individual garden rooms feature reflecting pools, knot gardens, Persian rills, a beech tunnel, beds of perennials and annuals, and framed views of the gorgeous countryside. The adjoining 7-acre Wilderness Garden is a woodland garden with carriage drives and trails that weave through stands of sugar maples, beech, and white pine underplanted with rhododendrons. The trails are punctuated with limestone and marble statues of animals, nymphs, centaurs and Greek gods.

Our third garden is Broccoli Hall, the private garden of author Maxine Paetro. Visitors to Broccoli Hall describe this English-style cottage garden as “incredible,” “inspirational,” “magical”-and they come back again and again. Starting in 1985 with 1.5 acres of bare earth, Maxine collaborated with horticulturist Tim Steinhoff to create a series of enchanting garden rooms. Broccoli Hall offers an apple tunnel; a brick courtyard; a lavish display of spring bulbs blooming with crabapples in May; an extensive border of irises, peonies, and old shrub roses flowering in June; a tree house with long views; and a secret woodland garden with a teddy bears’ picnic.

We will enjoy dinner at The Boathouse in Lakeville, Conn. on our drive back to Framingham with fond memories of the Upper Hudson River Valley’s magnificent estates and gardens.

Includes: 

• Small group tour with author Jana Milbocker and Friendship Tours

• 4 days, 3 nights, luxury air-conditioned coach

• 3 nights at Hyatt Place Poughkeepsie

• 10 magnificent gardens and historic estates

• 3 breakfasts, 4 lunches, 1 wine tasting, 4 dinners

• Hotel and restaurant gratuities

• Sightseeing and admissions per itinerary

• Limited to 30 travelers

$1,449 Double Occupancy $1,699 Single Occupancy based on 25 travelers

Final Payment Due: April 19, 2023

TOUR DEPARTS: Sunday, June 11, 2023, 7:00 am from the Sheraton Framingham, MA

TOUR ENDS: Wednesday, June 15, 2023, 9:00 pm at the Sheraton Framingham, MA

Jana Milbocker is a garden designer, speaker, and author of the Garden Tourist travel guides. She combines horticulture, design, and travel tips to educate, inspire and delight both new and seasoned gardeners.

Friendship Tours has been operating group tours for more than 40 years, including custom trips for the Connecticut Horticultural Society, Federated Garden Clubs of Conn., and Tower Hill Botanic Garden. FriendshipTours.net