"Ithaca" a Ithaca Travel Page by Fewf

Ithaca is defined by two things: universities and hippies. The two mix and mingle, though not as much as in some other places.

There are two "establishments of higher education" in Ithaca: Cornell University and Ithaca College. Both sit on hills, looking down upon the regular hippies who just live in Ithaca and have nothing to do with higher education. Ithaca College has the better view, mostly because they can see Cornell. Between the two of them, there are so many students, and so many of those leave for the summer months, that despite occasional temperatures of 30 degrees below zero, Ithaca's population in the winter is about double what it is in the summer. Traffic varies accordingly.

The word on the street is simultaneously that Ithaca is "gorges" (there are lots of beautiful gorges) and that Ithaca is gray, cold and depressing. When I first moved there, I felt a bit trapped--you have to drive for hours through farmland to get anywhere else, and I only had a bike--but once I got used to it (and to the fact that if I really wanted to, I could catch a bus to New York City, or any other place), I loved the fresh air, the architecture, and the people. I also loved that Ithaca is situated on the tip of the 40-mile-long Cayuga Lake. When I (rarely) had a free day, sometimes I'd do the 100-mile bike ride around it.