MONTPELIER, Vt. -- There's no McDonald's in the nation's smallest state capital. There are three locally owned bookstores but no Borders. Two video stores on Main Street but no Blockbuster. Several places to get good coffee but no Starbuck's.

National chain stores have been slow to come to Montpelier because there isn't the population to support them, says Fred Wilber, owner of the Buch Spieler tape and record store just off Main Street.Some haven't been welcome.

McDonald's tried to come to Montpelier a few years ago, eyeing a prime spot across from the courthouse at the corner of State and Elm streets. Many of Montpelier's 7,800 residents were in an uproar.

"I think there was such major opposition to McDonald's because it represents the all-pervasive corporate homogenization of things," Wilber says.

Or it could be that area residents already have lots of good places to eat. Montpelier is home to the New England Culinary Institute, which residents and frequent visitors agree has greatly elevated the quality -- as well as the quantity -- of local restaurants in its two decades of existence.

The institute runs two restaurants and a bakery on Main Street, all of which win high praise, and a banquet hall on the hill where Main Street climbs out of town. Several of the cooking school's graduates have started their own restaurants or are on the staff of other restaurants in the area.

Those who want to eat in can avail themselves of excellent breads from area bakers. And in summer months, there's lots of fresh produce available at the Saturday morning farmers' markets on the courthouse lawn.

From the courthouse it's an easy, two-block walk down State Street to the Vermont Statehouse. Built of white granite from nearby hills and topped with a gold-leaf dome, the Statehouse has been called by the National Register of Historic Places "one of the most picturesque statehouses in the country."

The Statehouse, built in 1857, has undergone extensive restoration work in the 1990s and contains many furnishings dating from the mid-19th century, including the original 30 black walnut desks in the Senate.

The House was recently redecorated with historically correct furnishings, among them a somewhat garish red and gold rug that several visitors have described as "bordello-like." After the House carpet was installed, senators voted to give themselves veto power over whatever rug the restorationists might pick for them.

The Statehouse is backed by a steep, wooded hill and deer and other wildlife sometimes wander down onto its lawn. A new hiking trail leads from behind the Statehouse up into Hubbard Park, a 185-acre expanse of hilly woods loved by hikers, cross-country skiers and others looking to escape the bustle of the tiny city below. The centerpiece of the park is a stone tower that offers panoramic views of the surrounding hills.

The city's diminutive size is a big part of its charm. You can see pretty much all of downtown Montpelier in a half-hour of strolling the sidewalks of its narrow streets. Walking is fun during rush quarter-hour, when you can usually beat the cars for a block or two.

On the walk you'll see the big, Victorian-era Greek revival and Queen Anne homes that line Main Street north of downtown, the plaza in front of Ben & Jerry's where the teenagers hang out, the bead shop where you can make your own necklace, and the new "Queen of Pentacles" shop, which specializes in the occult and caters to pagans.

It's all part of the pleasingly funky and somewhat odd flavor of the place; many locals call it "Mount Peculiar."

The influence of state government on such a small town is understated but unmistakable. Montpelier ranks second, behind Washington, D.C., in most lawyers per capita of any town in the country. The sizes offered at the Capitol Grounds coffee shop reflect the still-vibrant portions of the Vermont political spectrum. Those sizes are conservative, moderate, liberal and radical.

Also on the walking tour of downtown, you'll come across two excellent, locally owned bookstores, Bear Pond and Rivendell, as well as a paperback swap shop. And then there's the F.I. Somers & Sons Inc. hardware store.

Ah, Somers Hardware, an accidental museum to mid-20th century retail, with its narrow aisles stacked twice as tall as a man with the most obscure items you can think of, and a large, friendly staff eager to use a stepladder or hook on a pole to get them down for you.

Somers was nearly squeezed out a couple of years ago by its next-door neighbor, a regional hardware chain that owned the building and announced that it wasn't going to renew Somers' lease. Another uproar ensued. Demonstrators protested outside the stores -- perhaps the only time in recorded history that the people have taken to the streets in defense of a hardware store.

The chain heard talk in town that it would lose a lot of local business if it squeezed Somers out, and it backed down.

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Tourism peaks with the colors of autumn in late September and early October, when a tour bus pulls up in front of the Statehouse every quarter hour or so. The country roads outside of town are favorite leaf-peeping routes; brightly colored hillsides can be seen from many spots in downtown Montpelier itself.

During the holidays, a treat for the eyes in the capital are the ice sculptures of reindeer and other seasonal icons that grace the patio in front of the culinary institute's Main Street Grill.

Winter gives way only begrudgingly to spring in the northern third of Vermont, and before May's profusion of green, there's mud season to get through, a real challenge on the rutted gravel roads that traverse the hill towns around the capital.

Residents laugh when they return from places like Disneyland, with its quaint Main Street lined with shops, or a new mall near Myrtle Beach, S.C., that's done itself up as "The New England Shops." They're trying to imitate a place like Montpelier, with the major difference being that Montpelier is real.

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