Forest Park — Attraction in Springfield

When you're in the Springfield, MA area on a Tuesday, and want to visit Forest Park, be sure to catch the Farmer's Market where you'll find wonderful home grown/produced items.

We especially love Doce Mercer, known for corporate gift boxes and confections, but here at the local market with homemade Portuguese-style breads like English muffins, Portuguese rolls, and focaccia. Michelle and her daughter Martika offer excellent bread goods, and quite affordable, if not a wee bit underpriced in this economy. We're grateful for the good deals, but want them to stay in biz.

We also get our bakery breads from Berkshire Mountain Bakery, because their sourdough breads and pastries are the best anywhere. We find their breads life-changing because they're really breads, made with double fermentation and offering an amazing variety like jalepino-cheese ciabattas, San Francisco sourdough and baguettes. Amazing breads.

Tom's honey products and fresh farm eggs is another "can't miss" vendor, who even with the rising egg prices has kept his product very affordable.

Also we love Plum Island Jams, which have to be the best on the planet. The pineapple coconut is my fav, but there isn't one I can resist.

Of course we love fresh produce, and there are several choices at the market.

The rains, Covid and inflation have reduced the number of vendors, but we can only hope with patronage to bring in more.

Families can also find picnic table where they can enjoy food truck fare from hot dogs to ice cream to pizza and more.

Then there's the park itself offering great...

Beautiful ❤️, so very beautiful!!! I'd like to hope that Mr.Barney,the benefactor of this magnificent gift to not just the City of Springfield, but truly to all people,present and future,would be happy with how it has evolved , and been maintained.Just a magnificent park, with plenty of free spaces for all, families, couples, groups, single individuals to walk or drive thru, spending time to be outdoors...parents pushing carriages, lovers holding hands, dogs walking their owners...a space for freedom of motion, as well as freedom of thought and speech...ducks, birds, fish and other wildlife,flowers, trees, new and old, bushes and groves...picnic tables and grassy spaces,hills and flat sports areas... Beautiful ❤️, so very beautiful!!! I'd like to hope that Mr.Barney,the benefactor of this magnificent gift to not just the City of Springfield, but truly to all people,present and future,would be happy with how it has evolved , and been maintained.Just a magnificent park, with plenty of free spaces for all, families, couples, groups, single individuals to walk or drive thru, spending time to be outdoors...parents pushing carriages, lovers holding hands, dogs walking their owners...a space for freedom of motion, as well as freedom of thought and speech...ducks, birds, fish and other wildlife,flowers, trees, new and old, bushes and groves...picnic tables and grassy spaces,hills and flat sports areas...if you can imagine it, babbling brooks, gaggling geese, winds whistling thru the trees...it's all Here!!!...

One entrance closed and minor portion of inner roadway seemingly under reconstruction in summer 2019. Other main entrances open. Variety of interesting animals at the zoo including American bald eagles, a leopard, a marmoset, barnyard animals, Austrailian animals, lemurs, monkeys, camels, and a bobcat. Feed available for some animals from dispensers costing either a quarter or 50 cents depending upon the animal/dispenser. Hand sanitizer available. My kids got a kick out of the placards including a number of the animals' given names and reasons behind why each were in the zoo. There are dedicated parts of the park for lawn bowling and bocce. There are at least a couple of decent playgrounds. I did not see the waterpark-like features I had been told were there and did not locate the similarly reputed train ride. The downloadable .pdf version of the park map is not usefully detailed. The aquatic gardens portion of the park was quite beautiful and teaming with life. While laid out to enjoy in a pretty linear fashion, be sure not to miss the stylized covered bridge area. Hiking and ball fields are available. The Carriage House looked rather swankee from the exterior. My car had out-of-state plates, and so entering the park was $5. There was plenty of parking. Park road speed limits were safe and reasonable. Entering the zoo was $10 for the adults in my party and $5 for the children. Plenty of sunny and shady benches to take a load off....