What is a Country Inn Day?

A Country Inn Day is a day to escape from life’s routines and step away into a world of beauty and adventure or rest and relaxation – whatever is needed at the time.  For me, it’s a day where I imagine and then create delightful moments much like the moments I’ve enjoyed at beautiful country inns.  My 1853 home becomes my inn and on a Country Inn Day I can stay at this inn, stay close, or take off to a distant city.  Some Inn Days are full of imagination and others not so much.

It is my custom to enjoy one Country Inn Day each and every week, but now and then I make an exception to this rule and enjoy a string of Country Inn Days as was the case recently when I visited my son Patrick in New York City.

Patrick lives on the upper east side of Manhattan, very near Central Park and The Metropolitan Museum of Art so while he was busy at his job I had great fun at both of these wonderful places.

There is nothing quite as wonderful as a stroll through a lovely park – spoken as the true Romantic that I am.  Back home I love my Country Inn Nature days and I’m sure New Yorkers love their nature days at this lovely park too.  So much beauty . . . take a peek for yourself.

 And I never tire of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

There is so much to see at this museum, but I most love the period rooms because I absolutely love old houses.

These are just three of the many lovely rooms from great houses in Europe and America.

One can spend hours roaming the rooms of this museum and when tired and hungry you need not go very far for refreshment.  There are two very nice restaurants right in the museum.  My favorite is this one with its walls of windows looking out onto Central Park.  Art, yummy food, and nature, all together in one place.

Between Central Park and The Metropolitan Museum of Art I was kept pretty happy while my son was busy at work. But once his work day was over I could enjoy his company  as we did the town.  Patrick works on Park Avenue.  He’s a data scientist for a company called Dstillery.  Don’t ask me to explain the technical work he does but I loved visiting the company’s offices.

And the view of Park Avenue from these offices was quite impressive

Gee, if  only I studied statistics instead of music I too could have worked at a snazzy New York city company like this one.  Oh well, my Romantic spirit does love the music work I do.

Back at the inn in Hudson I usually have cocktails with a “dead friend”, –  Lord Byron or Ralph Waldo Emerson via biography, but while in New York Patrick and I visited all sorts of snazzy places.

Every place we went was buzzing with life.

I enjoyed lots of outings to places I had never been before.  Two of those places were Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights. I was surprised that Brooklyn Heights looked a lot like the Beacon Hill area of my beloved Boston.  Old brownstones lined the streets there and most of those brownstones were gorgeous with fancy iron fences and lovely stonework.

Then Patrick had a surprise for me.  We walked down one of the lanes and came to a sort of park.

And what did I see?

I saw the Brooklyn bridge.

On my next visit when the weather is a little warmer we’re going to take a walk across that bridge.  That will be fun!

The view from this park was really amazing.  There was Manhattan in all its glory and off in the distance I could even see the Statue of Liberty.

 All that walking, and we did a lot of it, all fast, for no one walks slowly in New York, made me very hungry each day.  I’m a foodie anyway and so is my son so we had a lot of interesting meals.  I’m especially fond of French food so one of my favorite meals was enjoyed at Cafe D”Alsace.

I had read about this establishment in one of my New York travel books and it didn’t disappoint me.  It happened to be quite near my son’s apartment so I hope he pops into this place often.  I would.  Lovely they have outdoor seating for warm Summer days.

But another restaurant that really delighted me was very Polish.  I happen to be 100% Polish you know.  Both sets of my grandparents lived in Poland until adulthood.  Patrick loves the food of all sorts of countries.  We ate Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese food on my visit, but he thought it only right a Polish girl like me experience real Polish food in a place where other real Polish people live and speak  Polish.  This place was back in Brooklyn.

Not quite as elegant as the French place, but a really fun experience none the less.

What to order?

And for the main course

Buttered potatoes, blood sausage, kiebasi, pork, chicken, salmon and cabbage.

I hadn’t had blood sausage in years – dark, crispy and yummy.

In between eating there were more museums.

This museum was actually the home of the Frick family and I was as impressed with the building as with the extensive art collection inside.  There were no pictures allowed except in the garden room so I can’t show you the lovely windows and draperies which I found to be exquisite.  Oh, to have millions of dollars before taxes were invented.

Here you see the Garden Room at the Frick.  Now that I’ve been to the family home I must get the biography of Mr. Frick and get to know him.  He just might become one of my “dead friends”.

Are you tired yet from all the outings?  I definitely had a lot of adventures and saw a great many new and interesting things on these Country Inn Days, so many that when I returned to Hudson I didn’t venture out for two weeks. There was a lot of walking and sometimes there were road blocks making us go out of our way to get where we were going.

Road blocks happened this day as we walked along the New York streets. We couldn’t help but notice lots and lots of policemen gathered together.  Was someone important about to exit the building they were facing? No.

They were getting instructions for the parade that was about to happen – something about a national holiday in Greece.

When streets are blocked, or any time you need to get from here to there, you can always take the subway.  We did that a lot,  and today we had a date, a date for tea.

Whenever I’m in a city I like to take tea at a fine hotel.  This Country Inn Day Patrick and I enjoyed afternoon tea at The Pierre Hotel on E 61st Street.  Our waiter was quite dashing and the food was quite dashing too, a bit fancier then the tea treats I offer when inviting guests to my inn back home.

What do you think?

Well, I know this post has gotten quite long, but that’s because my Country Inn Days were quite long, and quite full, and quite wonderful thanks to my charming son who played the part of Innkeeper as I stayed at his place for nearly a week.  Now that’s a good son for you.

Flying home was quite bittersweet because it’s always hard leaving Patrick, but I needed a rest!  And luckily I have another son by the name of Rory who I can dote on once home.

And as I write this post in my butler’s pantry I am resting and enjoying another Country Inn Day, but this one is quite different from the last one. I may not even leave my Jeremiah Brown House because balance is important and I’ve had quite enough excitement for the time being.  Rest and relaxation is the current word for this Country Inn Day.

Next up is tea in the Sun room with “dead friend” Agatha Christie.

I’ve really  enjoyed reliving my New York Country Inn Days with you because I truly believe sharing doubles the joy and we can never have too much joy in our lives.  I hope you’re making  joy happen in your life as well.  It’s up to you to do it. There are so many ways.  So till we meet again . . .

Take joy!