Corning aka: the Crystal City

Corning is a great little town. It’s beautiful, well maintained, and downtown Corning is great for window shopping. :)

My grandmother used to take me on rides on Corning’s double-decker busses. I remember going to the Corning glass museum and watching the exhibits of glass-blowing with awe when I was a little girl, and having fun playing on the glass playground.

Every time I go to Corning I feel like a little girl again. They have a maze going across the walking bridge that is drawn in yellow and blue paint. When I went to Corning yesterday, my mom and I traveled through the maze as we crossed the bridge, and I really did feel like a care-free little kid. Corning has that effect on people. :D

They have a great park near the walking bridge with a pavillion that is decorated in vines that is really beautiful. We ate our lunch there, which was a pizza that we got from the best Pizzeria in upstate New York: Aniello’s on Market Street in Corning. It is New York style pizza, large flat slices that you are meant to fold when you eat with just the right amount of cheese and delicious, mouth watering pizza sauce.

I stopped for a day here on the last leg of a cross-country road trip. The museum was a pleasant surprise and appealed to both my scientific and artistic sides.

what a pleasant place for an overnight stop. find a nice hotel, though…nicer than the comfort inn, at least. the glass museum was also a nice surprise! :o)

oh, if your there in the fall, be sure to buy some apples at a market…mmmmmmmmmmm!

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Corning, so I know a thing or two about it. ;-)

The obvious draw is the Corning Museum of Glass which underwent a huge renovation around 1999, making it a modern, family-oriented attraction. Besides the hot glass show and the more traditional museum exhibits, there are interactive demonstrations of the many uses of glass in science and technology. You can even make your own glass art at a walk-in workshop at “The Studio”, which is in the same complex as the glass museum.

CMOG tends to overshadow the other two museums in Corning’s city limits. The Benjamin Patterson Inn is an 18th-Century lodging house. Docents are often in period dress. Visitors can also visit a log cabin, a one-room schoolhouse, and a blacksmith shop. The Rockwell Museum of Western Art houses American Southwestern art (think Cowboys ‘n’ Indians) of all sorts.

It’d be hard to spend a week in Corning. It was harder to spend 18 years. :) But, if you want a 2-day trip to the town itself, that’s about the right length of time. It also provides a change of pace from the natural wonders in the surrounding area, if you somehow get bored of lakes and wineries…

I’d be more than happy to provide food recommendations, as that’s what I know best!

Corning is the home of Corning Glass, Corelle (makers of pyrex as well) and Steuben Glass. It’s located in the Southern Tier of New York State. There are glass museum tours, and glass blowing demonstrations. It’s pretty cool stuff.