Saratoga Springs: the opposite of a one-horse town

In the sweltering heat of Manhattan, even the prairie plantings on the High Line looked dusty and tired. I usually steer clear of the city in summer, but this year I arrived in the middle of August. It was the night of the supermoon and I went down to the river to try to catch a breeze. On Pier 45, couples were dancing the tango, twisting and dipping as the music drifted out across the water. The sky turned pink and right on cue the moon rose luminous behind the towers.

The next morning, I caught the Amtrak Adirondack train from Penn station. Named after the mountain range it passes through, it runs up the Hudson and on to Montreal, calling at old industrial towns with names familiar from William Kennedy and Philip Roth novels: Albany, Poughkeepsie, Schenectady. People like to gripe about Amtrak, complaining about its lack of punctuality, but in all my trips I’ve never experienced a single hitch. Wi-Fi, a café car, comfortable seats, uniformed guards, huge windows: what more could you want?

The train cleaved to the broad, gleaming river, unrecognisable as the dirty waterway that separates Manhattan from New Jersey. People were fishing here and there, and rafts of lilies proliferated by the banks. It was a world of blue and green. Between cities, the hills were deeply forested, and drifts of fireweed and black-eyed Susan grew wild beside the track.

I got off at Saratoga Springs, which has been attracting summer pilgrims for more than 200 years. In the early 19th century the then-village was transformed into a European-style spa resort thanks to the presence of dozens of springs, among them Big Red, Peerless, Old Iron and Geyser, each with purportedly healing properties.