The Vermont Department of Travel and Tourism (1-800-VERMONT) provides good brochures on Woodstock and environs. Call the local Chamber of Commerce (802-457-3555) to find out about when the entertaining, idiosyncratic walking tours around town and up Mount Tom take place. As for accommodations, I passed up the Woodstock Inn, with all its luxuries, when my phone call was switched to an answering machine and several weeks went by before I received a brochure in the mail. I settled on the well-located Shire Motel in a spacious room with a picture window overlooking a bend of the river. A flower garden edged the water, a family of woodchucks spread out across the lawn, and in the distance, like a little medieval fiefdom, rose the rooflines of Billings Farm.