The Cloisters

We started our day today with a LONG subway ride to the upper part of Manhattan to go to the Cloisters Museum. It is a part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We kind of had mixed feelings about it since our experience with the Met wasn't what we thought it would be. BUT, of course, we had to make a couple stops first! We got off the train at 163rd Street and walked over to the Morris Jumel Mansion. We knew it wasn't open on Tuesdays but thought we'd check out the outside of it to say we'd been there. The mansion was George Washington's headquarters for a month in 1776 during the Revolutionary War, before the British took it over.

The next stop was the George Washington Bridge. It was one I'd never seen before. We walked along the Henry Hudson Parkway forever to get there. It was a real pretty and the trail took us down along the Hudson River.

George Washington Bridge

Our goal was to find our way under the bridge to see the Little Red Lighthouse. There is a children's book that was written in 1945 called The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. It was so pretty down there but a little tricky to get there.

The Little Red Lighthouse

We kept walking and got to wondering if we were really going to get to The Cloisters since we had to cross the Henry Hudson Parkway at some point and there didn't seem to be a place to cross. Cars were flying along the highway. We finally asked someone who was walking along the trail and she said we would have a chance shortly. It was such a beautiful day to walk so we really didn't mind. I think they said the high today was 62 but it was windy. We FINALLY made it after climbing a hill that reminded us of San Francisco!

The Cloisters was built to showcase the Metropolitan's collection of medieval art. French and Spanish monastic cloisters, a 12th century chapterhouse, and Gothic and Romanesque chapels were shipped from Europe and reassembled on this site, stone by stone. The prize of the collection is the six handwoven 15th-century Unicorn Tapestries. (Obviously, I copied that from the book!) I LOVED IT!

The outside courtyard at The Cloisters

A carved altar that was beautiful. The precise work is amazing!

There were a lot of these sarcophagus' in one of the rooms.

I could go on and on about this. It wasn't crowded at all and so enjoyable. I'm thinking this has been one of my favorite days here. Our walk was so enjoyable and we really don't feel too worn out tonight. We walked 8.98 miles today for a total of 188.98 miles. Looks like we're going to walk in excess of 200 miles in one month! It's pretty easy walking since usually it's flat but walking on uneven sidewalks, dodging people and other obstacles makes it a challenge.

For those of you reading this tonight, when you get up in the morning, turn on The Today Show! Our plan is to get up early and go down there. We won't have a funny sign or anything but maybe you'll see us anyway. It will be a challenge getting over there by 7:00 and it may be a little later that we get there.

So, time to eat some leftover chili and will hopefully get to bed early. We have heat as of tonight and we're excited about that! Hope to "see" you in the morning!

Conrad and Linda