6 Best Sights in Manchester, Southern Vermont

A twofold treat, the summer home of Abraham Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln provides insight into the lives of the family, as well as an introduction to the lavish Manchester life of the early 1900s. In 1905, Robert built a 24-room Georgian Revival mansion where he and his descendants lived until 1975. It's the centerpiece of a beautifully preserved 412-acre estate and holds many of the family's prized possessions, including one of three surviving stovepipe hats owned by Abraham and a Lincoln Bible. When the 1,000-pipe Aeolian organ is played, the music reverberates as though from the mansion's very bones.

Rising from a 10-acre meadow, Hildene Farm is magnificent. The agriculture center is built in a traditional style—post-and-beam construction of timber felled and milled on the estate, and you can watch goat cheese being made.

The highlight, though, may be the elaborate formal gardens, where a thousand peonies bloom every June. There is also a teaching greenhouse, restored 1903 Pullman car, a 600-foot floating boardwalk across the Battenkill wetlands, and more than 12 miles of walking trails. When conditions permit, you can cross-country ski and snowshoe on the property.

At the end of a long, winding driveway, this center has a permanent collection of more than 1,000 19th- and 20th-century American artworks and presents temporary exhibitions. The original building, a Georgian mansion set on 100 acres, contains 10 galleries with works by more than 600 artists, many from Vermont. The center also hosts concerts, performances, and film screenings. In summer and fall, the views from the café at lunchtime are magnificent.

This museum houses the world's largest collection of angling art and angling-related objects—more than 1,400 rods, 1,200 reels, 22,000 flies, including the tackle of Winslow Homer, Babe Ruth, Jimmy Carter, and other notables. Every August, vendors sell antique equipment at the museum's fly-fishing festival. You can also practice your casting out back.

Hikers climb from forest that was once farm fields to fir and spruce at the summit of this 914-acre preserve on the slopes of Mt. Equinox. The Equinox Golf Resort & Spa conserved this land with the Vermont Land Trust in 1996, and it's permanently protected. A loop to tranquil Equinox Pond—owned by the resort—is among the easy trails for strolling, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. Others follow century-old stone walls, or offer rewarding climbs to views of the Battenkill Valley. 

This station is manned with friendly rangers and has dozens of recreational maps.

These 125-foot-tall tiered falls thunder in springtime, as water from melting snow rushes down—though it's beautiful even at a trickle in the late summer. A moderately strenuous, 4.6-mile hike starts off Glen Road and follows old logging roads and wooded trails to the falls; it takes four hours.