The village of Shelburne Falls, just below Route 2 — home of the Bridge of Flowers, a former trolley bridge turned into a hanging garden, and the Glacial Potholes carved into the riverbed.
Coming up you'll see the turn-off down into Shelburne Falls, and if you have even half an hour, take it — it's one of the loveliest little villages in New England, and it's just a few hundred yards off the Trail. Watch for the signs and drop down off Route 2 into the village; you can park right in town.
Two things make Shelburne Falls famous. The first is the Bridge of Flowers — an old concrete trolley bridge across the Deerfield River that lost its trolley a century ago and got replanted, deck to railing, as a hanging garden. From spring to frost it's a five-hundred-foot ribbon of blooms strung over the river, and Boone will tell you how a bankrupt bridge became a flower garden. The second is the Glacial Potholes — a stretch of riverbed downstream where the meltwater of the last Ice Age drilled dozens of perfectly round basins into solid rock, including one of the largest potholes in the world.
It's a walking village — galleries, a glass studio, an old-fashioned soda fountain. So this is your cue: if you want to stretch your legs, park down in Shelburne Falls, walk the Bridge of Flowers and peek at the potholes, then climb back up to Route 2 and keep heading west. We'll be right here when you're ready to roll.
Photo: King of Hearts · CC BY-SA 4.0
