Franklin County: Cycling Routes, History and Apple Culture

Franklin County brings together outdoor travel with history, culture and apple traditions. Cycling options range from a countywide network of trails to individual routes; museums and cultural sites offer their own highlights. When planning your trip, you can consider whether outdoor activity, scenery, history or seasonal themes should take center stage.

Cycling Routes and Landscapes

The Franklin County Bikeway is a countywide regional cycling network approximately 240 miles long. Signs mark its routes; maps show them for the eastern, central and western parts of the county. This divides the network into three sections, while its approximate total length conveys the larger scale of this cycling option.

The Canalside Rail Trail offers a shorter route: it follows a former rail line for 3.7 miles and is suitable for easy cycling. Walking and picnicking are also possible activities there. Hiking and mountain biking are possible at Mount Sugarloaf State Reservation. These two activities offer different ways to spend time outdoors, without assuming a particular route or summit destination.

The Mohawk Trail State Forest offers a different landscape. The area covers 6,000 acres of ridges, gorges and forests. Trout fishing is possible in the park’s rivers and streams. So, alongside cycling, forest scenery and fishing are options for different interests: one choice centers on traveling along routes, while the other focuses on the park’s natural environment and waterways.

History and Culture

Historic Deerfield interprets the history and culture of early America in an English open-field village first settled in 1669. Seasonal demonstrations and open-hearth cooking classes take place at the Hall Tavern. The historic site and the hands-on subject of cooking offer different ways to explore the past; the demonstrations and classes are seasonal.

The Memorial Hall Museum has 19 galleries that tell the stories of the region’s small communities and the people who lived there. The museum opened in 1880. The Great Falls Discovery Center has a different focus: its exhibits explore the natural, cultural and industrial history of the Connecticut River watershed and Turners Falls. The Center is also one endpoint of an easy, self-guided walking tour of Turners Falls.

In the Turners Falls Cultural District, the Shea Theater Arts Center presents performances by regional, national and international artists. Those interested in the industrial past will also find specific topics in Franklin County’s history: factories and mills produced, among other things, cutlery, hand tools, machine tools, measuring instruments, taps and dies, paper and textiles. The Franklin County Fairgrounds were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

Apple Themes and Seasons

Apples are part of both local production and an annual community festival. In Franklin County, various cider makers produce craft cider in dry and sweet varieties. CiderDays is a community festival dedicated to apples; 2026 marks the event’s 32nd anniversary.

The maple syrup season also provides a seasonal timeframe: in Franklin County, it runs from February into late spring. Together with CiderDays and the different cider varieties, it offers a distinctive perspective on regional products and their seasons. When planning your hotel stay, you can use these themes alongside cycling, landscapes and culture to help determine the focus of your trip.

Discover more destinations: Deerfield, Sunderland, Rowe, New Salem, Bernardston, Hampden, Middlesex, Plymouth.

For the main travel overview: Massachusetts.