Exploration day to Delhi, NY
Exploring some of the towns in Delaware County
The area around the Delaware River is pretty spectacular. Some of the towns seem to exist in a past era—the bones of buildings telling stories of times when they were bustling with people and were the center of trade and commerce. Other towns are still quite wild, with miles of seemingly untouched landscape backing up to rocky streams and tall hills hugged in fog. I really wanted to check out Alison Roman’s new shop First Bloom and Delhi looked like it would be a place I’d enjoy, so, after a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and fresh bacon (that we purchased from a farm down the road), Dan and I took a car ride headed north along the Delaware River.
Hancock seems to be a little rough around the edges, but from the car, it looked like it had a cool little enclave of antique shops. I’d likely not come here as a full-day destination, but I would go back just to check out Nightshade on Elm— a coffee shop with bakery items and a general store, and a diner that looked completely frozen in time. I can only imagine how nostalgic the interiors might be.
Walton was another town we drove through. It’s as small as Hancock and according to Wikipedia is known as the “Scarecrow Capital of the World”? Though I don’t recall seeing any. Walton had a few places that caught my eye from the car, and the Victorian architecture was quite stunning—though I always get a high-alert ghost vibe from those types of houses. I saw an art gallery called KIPNZ, a coffee shop called Molto Espresso, as well as an artist collective across the street that all looked worthy of a return visit.
Hobart’s main street seemed to be filled solely with bookstores?! Which confused and delighted us. After a little light research while writing this, I’ve learned that Hobart was developed into a “book village” after an entrepreneur in the area was inspired by one created in 1961 in Wales. In 2002, this entrepreneur incentivized locals (and a couple from NYC) to open bookstores along the main street with incredibly low rents in hopes of attracting more visitors to the town. As book lovers, we will be back here to explore for certain.
And finally, we made it to Delhi. A few of our friends love this town and this enticed us to see what all the fuss was about. I fell in love