Just in time for Frederic Church’s 200th birthday, we’re taking you along for a "boots on" tour of the moving landscape he spent decades designing here in the Hudson Valley. 

I’m walking the carriage roads of the Olana Historic Site with Annik LaFarge, author of the new book Composing Olana: A Journey on Foot Through Frederic Church's Greatest Work of Art. It’s the first book about this thoughtful and artful landscape.

You’ll hear the wind in the trees and the crunch of the gravel as we discover how Church used the earth itself as his canvas—from a man-made lake that mirrors the Hudson to the "erratic" boulders left behind by glaciers. Walking Olana, you’ll hear, is like "standing inside a painting." It’s an episode about seeing the hidden layers of the valley we love, sponsored by our friends at the Olana Partnership. 

We’ll learn a ton about Olana and about Frederic Church, who wasn’t necessarily a weekender but just might have been a cidiot. Annik and I also came up with a new sitcom idea: “Cole & Church.”

Grab your walking shoes, let’s head outside.

Links to Highlights:

• Olana Partnership Frederic Church 200th: (OLANA.org/FC200)
• Composing Olana: A Journey On Foot Through Frederic Church’s Greatest Work of Art (Cidiot Bookshop on Bookshop dot org)
• Germantown Boat Launch
• Catskill Mountain House

“He used features of the landscape as his characters.”

—Annik LaFarge on Frederic Church

Thank you to The Olana Partnership for supporting this episode and guest editor Brett Barry of Silver Hollow Audio and host of Kaatcast: The Catskills Podcast.  Come visit.

©2026 Mat Zucker Communications/MCZ Media LLC. Cidiot® is a registered trademark.