Syracuse Off The Beaten Path

Here is an unbelievable site. Beaver Lake has all manner of natural flora and fauna, "critters" large and small, wiley and cute. A lake to paddle your kayak or canoe on (or rent one of theirs; they have lifejackets, paddles, canoes and kayaks) There are hiking trails to wood lots, fern "grottos", wild flowers, with birds, bees and other wild life all along the way! They also have cross country skiing in winter. See the WEB page for special programs they offer.
It is a delight to have such diverse parks facilitites available so near. Beaver Lake is in the Northren part of Onondaga county but in many ways it is all greater metropolitan Syracuse.

Locally known as the "Old French Fort", the "mission" Sainte Marie among the Iroquois recognizes one of the first attemps to establish a permanent European presence in what is now Central New York.
The original fort is LONG gone though excavations have unearthed what may be foundation work from that. A CCC project in the 30's built what was claimed to be a replica of the original site but in fact research showed it to be a poor imitation. Due to the age of the structure and its historical inaccuracies rather than try to simply make a poor situation worse by adding new revisions onto old inaccuracies, the decision was made in the 1980's to completely replace the structure and add a visitors center to allow artifacts recovered over the years to be displayed with a more accurate, "hands on", living museum, to be built. The intention was to create a "vacation distination". It is a worthwhile site, to say the least, but the attendence draw is still primaily people from CNY. It is definitly worth your while to visit but half to two thirds of a day will do it end to end unless there is a quilting bee or harvest festival in progress. When such a festival is in progress, THEN two to three days as a vacation distination is realistic

I have lived in the Syracuse area all my life and only been to Green Lakes twice. If it didn't cost money and wasn't so far away I'm sure I would go more often. The park is nice though. There are beaches and walking trails in the park.

If they are in season :)))
The land for Thornden Park was purchased by the city in 1921, although the then owner had already created a fabulous garden there.
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The park includes a swimming pool and athletics fields as well as the formal gardens. The streets that border the park are Ostrom Avenue, Madison Street, and South Beech Street.

The Finger Lakes are a good place to relax on a day trip. There are 11 Finger Lakes. They all sit southwest of Syracuse. Half the lakes are located in the Syracuse metro and half are near the Rochester metro. Skaneateles is the best one near Syracuse, which is only 15 miles away from downtown.

The Boxing Hall of Fame is not well known. I don't know much about it and I live a half hour away from it. However, if you like Boxing, I'm sure you will love it!

(Check out the link below for more information)

Camillus is a 300-acre park with seven miles of navigable canal and towpath trails. The "Camillus Landing," Lock Tender's Shanty Museum and the Sims Store Museum are authentic replicas of actual buildings filled with true artifacts and memorabilia of the Erie Canal era. Picnic areas, flower gardens, boat cruises and nature trails. Sim's Store is open year round; Saturdays 9am - 1pm. Boat rides operate May-October, Sundays 1pm-5pm.

They also have boat tours on Sundays for $3 and Dinner cruises (prime rib) on Wednesday for $20 .

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park, is an accredited member of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA), and cooperates in a number of programs to further conservation and animal welfare. Among these programs are Species Survival Plans (SSP), Population Management Plans (PMP), Taxon Advisory Groups (TAG), Conservation Action Partnership (CAP) and regional cooperative breeding programs.
They have had several wonderfull successes with Asian Elephant breeding. There have been some heart breaks as well but the Zoo is all of life in a microcosm, birth, maturity, survival, death, the whole cycle of life for many species.