Peace Love and Music: A Visit to Woodstock

h the 50th anniversary of Woodstock upon us, I couldn’t help but reflect upon my visit to Bethel, NY to see the landmark field where this event was originally held.   For my traveling companion, this was a pilgrimage of a lifetime.   I personally had a very limited background  of the event that had become so famous.  My knowledge was limited to a few movies most notably Taking Woodstock (Amazon Affiliate link).  Therefore, I was reserved about this trip and looked at it more as a trip to learn about a piece of American History.

We woke up early and traveled to Bethel, New York.  We planned to get there as early as possible to allow us to not be rushed as we toured the site and visited the museum   As we neared the location I was amazed at how rural and small the town of Bethel really was.  I had totally expected it to be grown up and densely populated.  That was not the case at all.  It was quant and charming  but as I drove my expectations for the actual site of Woodstock and the accompanying museum and art center were diminishing.

We arrived in front of a large sprawling building that was the Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center.This site is a combination of concert venue and museum.  Everything was well maintained and very inviting.  As we walked through the front doors of the building I couldn’t help but be excited as I watched my traveling companion crane his neck to look through the large windows at the back of the building and more specifically the windows that overlook the actual field where the original Woodstock was held.  Quickly we paid our entrance fee to the museum and made a beeline to the back of the building.  Unfortunately, the day that we visited the actual field was closed so we had to view the field through the glass windows.  There had been an event a few days prior and while the field was supposed to be open during our visit a rain storm had delayed the progress of tearing down from the event.    I stood patiently as my traveling companion stood looking at the field where history had been made.     

We decided to head into the museum and that is where my fascination with Woodstock was born.  The museum is incredibly well laid out.  It is informative.  It is a virtual lesson in the history and culture of the time period surrounding the original Woodstock, the idea and creation of Woodstock, the actual event and the aftermath.  This museum is top notch.  It took a complete newbie to the event and gave me an incredible wealth of knowledge.   The artifacts were incredible. Strolling through the museum, reading all the placards and viewing the exhibits took a few hours.
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We decided to head into the museum and that is where my fascination with Woodstock was born.  The museum is incredibly well laid out.  It is informative.  It is a virtual lesson in the history and culture of the time period surrounding the original Woodstock, the idea and creation of Woodstock, the actual event and the aftermath.  This museum is top notch.  It took a complete newbie to the event and gave me an incredible wealth of knowledge.   The artifacts were incredible. Strolling through the museum, reading all the placards and viewing the exhibits took a few hours. ​

  While we were still disappointed that we could not actually walk on the field where history was made, we had done our homework and knew that there was a monument at the lower edge of the field that would at least give us a different view of the field.  A quick question to the museum employees and we knew that we could access it from a road and wouldn’t need to traverse the field.  We headed out in the car to find the monument!  How hard could it be?

It wasn’t too difficult at all.  We did get to see some nice houses and some gorgeous scenery in the town of Bethel as we drove.  We may have taken one or two wrong turns on purpose just to look at the area.  But eventually we did arrive at the monument. e quickly got out of the car and headed to the monument.   It is situated on the lower corner of the field surrounded by a wooden rail fence.  We stopped and read the engraved description and stood at the rail fence just imagining what it must have been like to stand on that field so many years ago. ​

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The town of Bethel is quite rural so as soon as we had explored and seen everything we headed to the town of Liberty, NY.  The town of Liberty is about 15 miles north of Bethel and it is where we had secured hotel rooms for the night.  Of course we  had grand plans to use the hotel pool but we were too tired after a day of exploring.  We did see a restaurant in our exploration that we wanted to try.    We ate our dinner at Piccolo Paese    It was a really nice meal that for us consisted of Mahi Mahi and Ravioli.  We rounded out the meal with a chocolate lava dessert.  It was well worth the visit and I would definitely go back if I were to be in Liberty, NY again.

This was a fantastic visit.  It was a dream come true for someone that has always been intrigued with Woodstock and classic rock music and it was an interesting museum and experience for someone that had very little prior knowledge of an iconic event.   It was definitely worth the visit!

Check out another New York trip, Jamestown, NY, the birthplace of Lucille Ball.
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