Goat Hill Overlook
River towns often own a mystique, perhaps because the moving water flowing past their shores brings variety. The Delaware River gives us prime examples of this feature with its celebrated river towns, beginning at Lambertville/New Hope and extending north all the way through the Delaware Water Gap and above.
Lambertville, for one, contains lots of small-town treasures, including walkable streets and an eclectic collection of shops and restaurants. But today we head to Goat Hill Preserve on its outskirts and the locally famous Overlook. The half-mile uphill walk along a wide, graveled path opens to a great view of the bustling river below.
Facing west, the Overlook is especially popular with sunset viewers, but we hike it on a sparkling late-summer morning and find it worth the climb, thinking: you can’t beat some moderate exercise leading to a great view.
Sergeantsville Inn
Next, we drive a few miles upstream and slightly inland to the Sergeantsville Inn, a fine-dining dinner destination that offers lunch Friday through Sunday. Set inside a stone farmhouse circa 1737, the inn sits quietly on this Sunday afternoon, and we dine in the picturesque tavern section (the whole restaurant is picturesque) for a great Sunday lunch of traditional roast beef and potatoes. Normally we avoid eating this heavily during the day, but how do you turn down such a well-prepared traditional meal in a traditional setting?
ArtYard
After lunch, our journey continues upstream to Frenchtown, though we take an inland route through bucolic rolling hills. Few people know how gorgeous New Jersey is outside of its industrial strip, and this stretch of road can compete on a pastoral level with any place on earth, in our opinion.
We arrive at ArtYard, an exhibition/theater space in Frenchtown that bills itself as “bringing provocative art, performance & creative mischief to a small town at the river’s edge.” Well said. Beginning life in an unheated dairy barn in 2005, ArtYard was literally a yard before the construction of its current 21,000 square-foot space that features two large galleries plus a theater. Entrance is free Thursday through Sunday, supported by donations, grants, and government arts contributions, a remarkable space for such a small town.
Drawings on milk carton overstock by David Bailin, through October 11, 2026
Phantom Limbs and other textile sculptures by Tamara Kostianovsky, on view through September 20, 2026
Mom Bras, a series by Cassie Arnold, hand knit with soft wool
Frenchtown
After viewing ArtYard’s two floors of exhibits, we cross over to a wide, popular path that runs along the Delaware River and, after a short walk, reach Frenchtown’s main street full of shops, people and cars slowly moving their way toward the Uhlerstown-Frenchtown Bridge that crosses over to Pennsylvania.
This is a window-shopping expedition. We check out the menu at FINNBAR, perhaps the best restaurant in town before continuing to Gemstone Gallery, where it is almost impossible not to buy a rock, and then the high-quality Frenchtown Bookstore (always judge a town by its bookstore, if it has one). Last in line is Sandy’s Scoops ice cream shop, where we pause before heading home.
