Aim for the "Commons"; it took me 30 minutes to navigate the streets, swinging from one side of two to the other like a 1957 yo-yo. Once we passed the pedestrian mall, it took us a good ten minutes to navigate the one-way streets and find a parking spot, the multi-storey parking garage being occupied by a back hoe and a jack-hammer.
Two nice young men in green sweatshirts, manning an information booth, sent me off to the visitors centre where I could enquire about Downtown Dollars.
The visitor centre is on a North-South street just west of the pedestrian mall. You can't miss it. Tall white columns mark the entrance.
Inside, two delightfully cheerful young ladies answer enquiries about Ithaca whatnots. It seems that this is the place to purchase the equivalent of Toronto Dollars, but they are not Ithaca Hours. They are "Downtown Dollars" and I purchased $50 worth in tens and fives.
At the time the certificates are issued, the serial numbers are recorded in a ledger with pins to align the holes in the Gift Certificate sheets, ...
... after which the Gift certificates are torn off and counted out to the happy tourist
Do participating stores display any sort of sign that they accept Downtown Dollars? "They are supposed to", sheepishly.
They don't. But you can always ask and have the store cashier wander over to the manager to check if "we accept something called Downtown Dollars".
Just like Toronto, eh?
I had a good time wandering the core; there are a couple of streets populated with student-budget eateries offering a wide variety of foods.
I would return and spend a whole day there, but my budget wouldn't allow it.
Too many excellent "rare and used books" stores. In one I was overwhelmed by their stock on Winston S Churchill, and just took a photo of one of their shelves so that I could contrast it at leisure against my own collection when I returned home.
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