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State bird, bluebird.   State flower, rose.
State tree, sugar maple

   New York is Famous for Many things.

The: Statue of Liberty, The: Empire State Building

Manhattan, Long Island, Niagara Falls NEW YORK stands inevitably in the shadow of merica's most celebrated city. The words "New York" bring to mind soaring skyscrapers and congested streets, not miles of rolling dairy farmland, colonial villages, workaday towns, lakes, waterfalls and towering mountains that spread north and west from New York City and constitute upstate New York . Just an hour's drive north of Manhattan, the valley of the Hudson River

New Your City (NewYork NewYork), holds wonderful romantic appeal for visitors. Walking the streets here, you'll cut between buildings that are icons to the modern age  and whether Looking at the flickering lights of the midtown skyscrapers as you speed across the Queensboro bridge, experiencing the early life downtown, or just spending the morning on the Staten Island ferry, you really would have to be made of stone not to be moved by it all. There's no place quite like it.

Just east of New York City, Long Island unfurls for 125 miles of lush farmland and broad sandy beaches, and is perhaps best explored as an excursion of a few days from the metropolis. Its western end abuts the urban boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, and for a while continues as a suburban sprawl of shopping malls and fast-food outlets; but further east, the settlements begin to thin out and the countryside can get surprisingly remote. The north and south shores differ greatly - the former more immediately beautiful, its cliffs topped with luxurious mansions and estates, while the South Shore is fringed by almost continuous sand, interspersed with holiday resorts such as Jones Beach and Fire Island . At its far end Long Island splits in two, the North Fork retaining a marked rural aspect while the South Fork , much of which is known as The Hamptons , sets itself apart as an enclave of New York's richest and most famous.

All Americans who lived in the 60's know of woodstock and during the 1960s it was a favorite stomping ground for the likes of Dylan, Hendrix and Van Morrison. It still bears signs of its hippie past: shops sell tie dyed T-shirts and crystals, and there's even the odd commune out in the woods

The fertile farming country stretching from Albany at the head of the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie, along the route of the Erie Canal , comprises the agricultural heartland of New York State. The eastern parts - also known as Central Leatherstocking , after the protective leggings worn by the area's first settlers - are well off the conventional tourist trails. Unless you want to check out one of the specialist sports museums, like the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown , this is not a high-priority destination.

With the captivating exception of Niagara Falls , one of the continent's biggest crowd pullers, there's little to see in the northwest reaches of New York State. Standing out from the mostly flat farmland, the industrial giants of Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo each possess a couple of worthy museums, but are best approached as bases for seeing the surrounding area (Buffalo, for example, is a good base for Niagara Falls).

To the average commuter, the Hudson River is just an inconvenient barrier en route to New Jersey. However, you only need to travel a few miles north of Manhattan before the valley takes on a Rhine-like charm, with prodigious historic homes, such as those of the Roosevelt, Vanderbilt and van Cortland families, rising from its steep and thickly wooded banks. A little further on come the forests of the Catskill Mountains , whose brilliant fall colors rival anything to be seen in New England. Few of the cities along the Hudson, including the large but lackluster state capital of Albany , hold much to attract the visitor, but some of the small towns are worth checking out, most notably the New Agey village of Woodstock , nestled among the Catskills.

Every second, almost three quarters of a million gallons of water explode over the knife-edge NIAGARA FALLS , right on the border with Canada some twenty miles north of Buffalo on I-190. This awesome spectacle is made even more so by the variety of methods laid on to help you get closer to it: boats, catwalks, observation towers and helicopters all push as near to the curtain of gushing water as they dare. At night the falls are lit up, and the colored waters tumble dramatically into blackness, while in winter the whole scene changes as the falls freeze to form gigantic razor-tipped icicles.

Many visitors will, however, find the whole experience a bit too gimmicky; no commercial opening has been left unexploited (Oscar Wilde quipped that he would have been more impressed if the falls ran upwards; at least no one's tried that yet) and now corporate big-hitters like the Hard Rock Café have joined in the action, pushing the place closer to an aquatic Vegas (there's already a casino on the Canadian side). Don't expect too much; neither the small city of Niagara Falls , a smelly, shabby industrial eyesore despite recent efforts to spruce it up, nor the more developed tinsel town of Niagara, Canada , is a place to savor in any way. Once you've seen the falls, from as many different angles as you can manage, there's no point in sticking around, and you'll have a better time heading on to Buffalo (or Rochester, or anywhere) rather than trying to rustle up some fun here. However, one of the biggest factory outlet malls in the country is just north of the city, and seems to be almost as big a draw as the falls these days.

The Falls
Niagara Falls comprises three distinct cataracts. The tallest are the American and Bridal Veil falls on the American side, separated by tiny Luna Island and plunging over jagged rocks in a 180ft drop