Speaking of quarries--check out the spooky man-made Widow Jane caves of Rosendale, NY. This historic river-bend town in the lower Hudson River Valley, in the center of iron-rich hills, is riddled with the ruins of old mines and foundries, and locks from The Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. Home to a spectacular foot-accessible 150-foot abandoned 19th-century iron railroad trestle, Rosendale is also the former home of famed Rosendale cement, "the cement that built America." The natural cement limestone, mined in great quantities from chambers like one pictured (accessed from Route 213), was famously used in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the NY State Thruway. For five-star dining, go to chef John Novi's gastronomic wonder at the 1797 Depuy Canal House, in nearby High Falls (think twice about the downstairs Chefs on Fire, though--the service can be absent-minded).
