The tasting room with a fire going. The bookstore that doesn't mind if you stay two hours. The museum nobody on TripAdvisor mentions. Rain on a lake is one of the better problems to have.
Industrial-chic taproom in downtown Ithaca's brewery district. Mixed-culture sours that aren't an afterthought and a Belgian program the other two Ithaca brewers don't touch. Best of the three for a sour-nerd stop.
Basement taproom on the Ithaca Commons. Smallest of Ithaca's three brewers, only one walkable from the bookstore, and the right winter stop when the wind is coming down State Street.
Six-lane bowling alley with a chef-driven kitchen — best tater tots in the county and a serious burger. The default GrassRoots-week pre-show stop. Book the lanes in advance from Thursday on.
I.M. Pei-designed on Cornell's campus with rooftop views of Ithaca and the lake — free admission, Rockefeller Asian collection, and the fifth-floor viewing platform that is the best free view of Cayuga you can get without hiking.
Full-scale casino and resort just off the Thruway near the north end — table games, a 205-room hotel, and the concert calendar that brings acts most Finger Lakes venues can't. The rainy-Saturday-night pivot when the wine day ended early.
The 1848 convention site in Seneca Falls — Wesleyan Chapel, the Elizabeth Cady Stanton house, and the visitor center that anchors a real half-day of history. The reason Cayuga's north end isn't just a launching point.