• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

The harbor at Sunset Beach Hotel on Shelter Island.   (Photo: Courtesy of the Sunset Beach Hotel)

If you’re tired of the wineries, have a beer at the decade-old Blue Point Brewery in Patchogue. The tour ends with a pint of microbrew inside a converted seventies Penguin Ice Factory. Starting in July, the brewery co-sponsors Alive After 5, a Friday-night street fair featuring five stages of theater and local live music. Order a pint from the brewery’s stage, located on South Ocean Avenue this year.

Rent a bike ($28 a day) from Greenport’s Bike Stop (200 Front St.; 631-477-2432) and take it aboard a ferry to secluded Shelter Island ($5 round trip). Pick up a map at the visitor’s center and bike to the Mashomack Preserve ($2 donation suggested), a 2,039-acre woodland with twenty miles of trails. Break for lunch at André Balazs's Sunset Beach Hotel (35 Shore Rd.; 631-749-2001), where you can eat the food of chef Dan Silverman (formerly of Lever House) on the open-air top deck and sip the exclusive new Sunset Beach rosé. Save room for dessert: one of 30 flavors of ice cream from the Tuck Shop, up the road on West Neck and Menantic (631-749-1548).

Yoga arrived in Greenport only last May, at the Temple Yoga Center. The 3000-square-foot studio is housed in vaulted-ceiling former Masonic temple. Classes, $20 each or $18 each when you purchase a ten-class card, range from the standard Vinyasa and Ashtanga to teen yoga, prenatal and Mommy & Me.

Take the kids to Gull Pond Beach, a waveless strip next to the Shelter Island Ferry landing; you’ll need a $25 permit from the beach attendant. The more ambitious can drive to Orient State Park (Rte. 25; 631-323-2440; entry is $8 a day), the North Fork’s vast stretch of sand with a snack bar, bathhouse, picnic grounds, a playground, and miles of maritime forest for hiking, biking, and nature walks. Watch the sunset at 67 Steps, where a long staircase leads to a remote, cliff-enshrouded beach.

Published on Jul 28, 2008 as a web exclusive.