Guide Exploring Burlington, Vermont | SolarTravels.com

<body> Destination Guides Search for a City Destination Guides > North America > USA > New England > Vermont > Burlington Burlington -- Sights -- Shelburne Museum Travel Options Flights Hotels Vacation Rentals Cars • Burlington · The City • Arrival, Information And Getting Around • Eating, Drinking And Entertainment • Explore Burlington • Hotels in Burlington BURLINGTON BE THERE NOW Hotels in Burlington • Wyndham Burlington Hotel Burlington from $116.00 USD • Sheraton Burlington Hotel & Conference Center Burlington from $115.00 USD • Wyndham Burlington Hotel Burlington from $116.00 USD More Hotels in Burlington >> READ IT HERE Lakeside BURLINGTON , Vermont's largest "city" with a population nudging forty thousand, is one of the most enjoyable towns in New England, a hip, relaxed fusion of Montral, eighty miles to the north, and Boston, over two hundred miles southeast. In fact, from its earliest days, Burlington looked as much to Canada as to the south. Shipping connections with the St Lawrence River were far easier than the land routes across the mountains, and the harbor became a major supply center. The city's founders included Ethan Allen and family far from being some impoverished Robin Hood figure, Ethan was a wealthy landowner, and his brother Ira set up the University of Vermont. Burlington today is the definitive youthful, outward-looking university town. It's one of the few American cities to offer something approaching a caf culture, with a downtown you can stroll around on foot, especially around the Church Street Marketplace, and plenty of open-air terraces. Politically, too, it's unusual: Bernard Saunders, the former "socialist" mayor of Burlington, was in 1990 elected to the House of Representatives from Vermont the first political independent to go to Congress in forty years. The City Your natural inclination on setting out to explore Burlington might be to head for the waterfront . In fact, this is a surprisingly undeveloped area, though Battery Park at its northern end makes a good place to watch the sun go down over the... Your natural inclination on setting out to explore Burlington might be to head for the waterfront . In fact, this is a surprisingly undeveloped area, though Battery Park at its northern end makes a good place to watch the sun go down over the Adirondacks - especially when there's a band playing, as there often is at weekends. A better target is the pedestrianized Church Street Marketplace , a few blocks back, which holds Burlington's finest old buildings and its modern cafés and boutiques. The free Robert Hull Fleming Museum on Colchester Avenue (Tues-Fri 9am-4pm, Sun 1-5pm) has an interesting collection of art and artifacts from all over the world, including pre-Columbian pieces, while north on Hwy-127, the Ethan Allen Homestead (mid-May to mid-June daily 1-5pm; mid-June to mid-Oct Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $4) offers a multifaceted look at the life and times of Vermont's controversial founding father. </body>