We love road trips! It’s always a great way to go on a mini-vacation with a small budget and with little distance to cover. And the best type of road trips are the ones where you get to visit a different state/province, or better yet, a different country. In these instances, you can feel completely disconnected from your everyday life with just modest effort. That’s something we both needed so off we went.
This time, we visited Burlington in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. If you’ve never been, we highly recommend it! For me [Mariam], the last time I went was about 6 years ago, and I feel like it is about time to go back and enjoy this charming city. As for me [Henry], I have actually never been to Burlington despite the fact that we only live 1h45min from there. But, it’s never too late, is it?
Burlington, oh Burlington! So small, and yet, so much to offer. With a population of only 43,000, Burlington is still the largest city in Vermont. This means that you get to have the advantages of both a big city (good transportation system, lots of entertainment, variety of restaurants and shopping…) and a small town (safety, fewer crowds and traffic, abundant green space…). With only two days to explore the city, we had to do as much as possible and make sure that we hit the main attractions. And that we did.
If like us, you only have a couple of days in Burlington, this is what we recommend: Eat, walk, explore…Repeat. That’s exactly what we did. Our first stop was The American Flatbread Burlington Hearth. This was an excellent way to start our trip. The pizzas there are absolutely mouth-watering. We both love pizzas and already have our favorite spots in Montreal, New York, Toronto, and even in Rome, but this place just redefined the word ‘pizza’ for us. So much so that we had to dedicate a whole blogpost just for this. If you’ve been there, please feel free to leave a comment on that section of our blog. We would love to hear your opinion.
After such delicious (and heavy) food, we decided to go for a walk on the famous Church Street Marketplace. Lucky us, there was a sidewalk sale, which made our walk even more enjoyable. Cute little stores, pubs, fun roadside entertainment, and historic statues were on our paths. Something we learned from this walk (and the whole trip) is that Vermonters are very health- and environmentally-conscious. Pretty much every store offered local produce/products and/or some sort of sports gear. The care they give to recycling, promoting green living, and simply caring for one another (and our furry friends) is incredible.
Of course, after walking for a couple of hours, our stomachs started to growl for dessert, and there is no better place than the Lake Champlain Chocolates to dive into sweet wonder. This is choco-heaven in all its forms: Ice cream, milkshakes, fudge, candy, hot cocoa, dipped marshmallow – you name it. If you like chocolate, you have to try this place. Still not sure? Okay. fine, read this blogpost and we’ll see 😉
At this point we can’t move much with our loaded bellies. This is why we decided to go and sit by the waterfront park: A perfect place to rest, meditate, read a book, and in our case, just simply sit (much needed after 10,000 steps of walking and 10 pounds of food). There is a bike path, a skate park, and boat docks along the water. Seeing this, we can’t stop but realize how lucky Burlingtonians are to have such beautiful scenery in the middle of their city. After resting for about 45 minutes we walked along the water and kept discovering more beautiful landscapes. From lush gardens to a community boathouse; from fishing pears to museums; from a sailing centre to food trucks.
Wait, did we say food trucks? Yes! Is it time for supper yet? Yes again! Another 10,000 steps later, we felt like we deserved another treat. This time we wanted to find a place that would offer both good food and live music. And to our big surprise, right next to the food truck we had spotted was Foam Brewers, a nice bar near the waterfront that had… wait for it… Live jazz. Ohhhh yes! So, we got a falafel burger and a bacon double burger from the truck, both served with some surprisingly delicious kale salad. We then went to the bar where we each had a drink: a beer [for Henry] and a sparkling maple drink [for Mariam] while listening to some live jazz music.
The evening is even more beautiful than the day, especially around Church Street. With all its lights, nice pubs, and crowded restaurants, it got even more atmosphere at night. We enjoyed a nice little stroll there, before heading to our hotel for a well deserved sleep.
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