Hotels in Ithaca, New York

A little about Ithaca...

The City of Ithaca (named for the Greek island of Ithaca) sits on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, in Central New York State. It is best known for being home to Cornell University — an Ivy League school with almost 20,000 students (most of them studying on Cornell's Ithaca campus).

The City of Ithaca is the center of the Ithaca metropolitan area (which also contains the legally distinct Town of Ithaca and other towns and villages in Tompkins County) and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York. As of 2000, the city had a population of 29,287, and the metropolitan area had a population of 100,135. 2004 estimates puts the city population at 29,952, an increase of 2.3%. It is the North American seat of His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

The city is home to Ithaca College, situated on South Hill, and Cornell University which overlooks the town from East Hill.

Points of interest:
Cornell Plantations
Cornell University
Cornell Dairy Bar
Ithaca College
Ithaca Commons
F.R. Newman Arboretum
Sciencenter
Paleontological Research Institution's Museum of the Earth
Stewart Park
Buttermilk Falls State Park
Robert H. Treman State Park
Finger Lakes Trail
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

Ithacans support the Ithaca Farmers Market, professional theaters (Kitchen Theatre, Hangar Theatre, Icarus Theatre), a civic orchestra, much parkland, the Sciencenter for children, and the Museum of the Earth. Ithaca is noted for its annual artistic celebration of community: The Ithaca Festival (and its parade), the Circus Eccentrithaca. Local live music is very prominent in the culture of Ithaca, the home of several nationally known acts such as Johnny Dowd, John Brown's Body, Donna the Buffalo, The Horseflies, and The Burns Sisters. The Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts provides grants and Summer Fellowships at the Saltonstall Arts Colony for New York State artists and writers. Ithaca also hosts what is described as the third-largest used-book sale in the United States.