Saratoga Springs: Race Track, Mineral Baths & SPAC

The oldest thoroughbred racing venue in America, in operation since August 3, 1863 — a week after the draft riots in New York City. The wooden grandstand, the Oklahoma training track, and the walking ring are original in character; the infield is the social center on weekend afternoons, with picnic tables and the bugler calling horses to the post. The racing season runs 40 days from late July through Labor Day.

The Roosevelt Baths & Spa, built in 1935 by the New Deal as part of the National Park Service's development of the Saratoga mineral springs, has 42 private bath suites with mineral spring water piped in from the springs below the park. The carbon dioxide content of the water makes the bather's skin tingle and turns the water a golden color; the Iroquois used the springs medicinally for centuries before European settlement. The Park's Classical Revival architecture by Joseph Freedlander is the finest New Deal park design in New York.

The summer home of the New York City Ballet (June-July) and the Philadelphia Orchestra (August), in a 5,300-seat amphitheater in the Saratoga Spa State Park. The 25,000-person lawn beyond the pavilion fills with picnickers on summer concert nights; the pre-concert lawn scene at SPAC has been a Saratoga tradition since the amphitheater opened in 1966.

The site of the 1777 Battle of Saratoga — the turning point of the American Revolution, where General Burgoyne's British army was surrounded and forced to surrender, convincing France to enter the war as an American ally. The 9.5-mile auto tour road passes all significant positions; the Breymann Redoubt is where Benedict Arnold was wounded in his heroic final charge before his later treason. The American Boot monument commemorates Arnold's contribution without naming him.

The 1777 house of Philip Schuyler, father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton, built on the site of his burned farmhouse immediately after Burgoyne's surrender — Burgoyne burned the original house before his defeat. The Victory Monument in Schuylerville village is a 155-foot obelisk on the site of Burgoyne's surrender; the inscriptions on the four corner niches include the empty niche where Arnold's name was removed after his treason.

The most improbable cultural revival in upstate New York — a 19th-century whaling and iron town that has been colonized by New York City design professionals since the 1990s, producing a 5-block commercial street of antique shops, design galleries, restaurants, and cafes at a density that would be notable in Brooklyn. The Basilica Hudson arts center occupies a former foundry; the Olana State Historic Site with Frederic Church's Moorish house is on the bluff south of town.

A Hudson restaurant on Warren Street serving Northern Italian cuisine from Liguria and Piedmont in a casual room with the best pasta in the Hudson Valley. The house-made tagliatelle with wild boar ragu, the ribollita, and the tiramisu have been on the menu since the restaurant opened in 1999.