Enjoy the sweetest bounty of spring as five Sunapee area inns partner with local maple sugar houses to make March 28 to 30 a full weekend event.

A sure cure for end-of-winter doldrums, this unique package includes two nights accommodations, hearty breakfasts, a local guide and map of area sugarhouses, and a sleigh ride.

Take a self-guided tour of neighboring sugarhouses where you can watch maple syrup being made the old-fashioned way, and learn the history of this New England tradition. An accompanying map includes suggestions for antiquing, tax-free shopping, and local places to snowshoe or cross-country ski.

After a day of touring, slip away for a romantic sleigh ride through the fields of Ragged View Farm. (Spring rides depend on snow cover.) Or soothe tired muscles with a maple sugar body scrub at the Garden Spa.

Each inn serves up its own hearty breakfast specialty where maple syrup is an honored guest, among them Belgian waffles with a maple walnut sauce, maple hot chocolate, or Dutch Apple Babies.

Sunapee Region participating inns: Candlelite Inn, Bradford, NH, Rosewood Country Inn, Bradford, NH, Henniker House, Henniker, NH, Highland Lake Inn, Andover, NH and the Inn at Pleasant Lake, New London, NH. Travel time north is just 90 minutes from Boston.

Rates start at $120 pp/do and vary by inn. See complete package
details at: http://www.nhvacations.org.