EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

Just before Syracuse, at exit 34 from I-90, nondescript CANASTOTA is the home of the International Boxing Hall of Fame (May-Sept daily 9am-5pm; Oct-April Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 9am-4pm; $4; tel 315/697-7095), a mecca for boxing enthusiasts but easily skipped by anyone else. Canastota's links with boxing go back to early in the nineteenth century, and this ten-thousand-strong village has produced two postwar world champions: Carmen Basilio, who took away the middleweight crown of Sugar Ray Robinson in an epic 1958 encounter, and Billy Backus, a welterweight title-holder during the early 1970s. All the greats are represented in the two-room museum, whether by picture, dressing-gown, mouthpiece, handwraps, gloves or bronze fist impressions, and there's a selection of big-fight videos.