Experience the best of Saratoga Springs

Saratoga Springs lies at the foot of the Adirondacks in upstate New York and grew in the nineteenth century as a spa where visitors came to drink and bathe in naturally carbonated mineral water. Saratoga Spa State Park keeps the springs, bathhouses and pavilions, and Broadway, the main street, is lined with Victorian hotels, shops and cafés. Congress Park has fountains, a historic casino building and a spring.

Saratoga Race Course, where horse racing has been held since 1863, fills the town each summer. The Saratoga Performing Arts Center in the park hosts ballet, orchestras and concerts. Saratoga National Historical Park, to the south-east, marks the battles of 1777, a turning point of the American Revolution, and Saratoga Lake and Lake George lie close by.

Saratoga chips are said to have been born here in the 1850s, when a cook fried potatoes thin to please a guest, and restaurants on Broadway use farm produce from the surrounding valleys. Autumn brings colour to the foothills behind the town, and winters are snowy and quiet.