Bennington Battle Monument

Towering over Bennington [1] like a smaller version of the Washington Monument, it’s hard to miss the 300-foot-tall limestone obelisk that is the Bennington Battle Monument (15 Monument Cir., 802/447-0550, www. historicvermont.org/bennington, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. mid-Apr.–Oct., $2 adults, $1 children).

Inside is a diorama of the second engagement of the Battle of Bennington, along with an elevator that takes visitors two-thirds of the way up for a knockout view of the Green Mountains [2], the Berkshires, and the Taconic Range (in Vermont [3], Massachusetts [4], and New York [5] respectively).

Appropriately heroic statues of the battle’s heroes, colonels John Stark and Seth Warner, stand on the monument grounds, along with a gift shop located on the actual site of the storehouse the British hoped to capture.