Weekend Getaway: FishKill, NY
FishKill and Poughkeepsie are a little over 2 hours from Long Island or NYC. The drive is lovely. Once you get out of the Bronx, you drive up the Taconic Parkway, which is a winding road with trees on either side. You start to see mountains in the distance and you feel like you’ve been away a long time, even if it’s only a couple of hours!
My husband and I went up to Fishkill, NY and stayed at the local Holiday Inn, off Route 9. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the accommodations were especially since it included internet and a full breakfast. We stayed in a king bed and had a full couch in our room with a refrigerator and coffee maker. There was even a small pool and hot tub indoors!
We got up here on a Friday evening and had a lovely dinner at a place called, Il Barilotto Enoteca. It was a quaint Italian restaurant and the food was incredible. We started with a shrimp appetizer that was dipped in gorgonzola cheese. Then, we shared a kale Caesar’s salad and finally onto the main dishes. My husband ordered the gnocchi. I had the eggplant ravioli. We ate every last drop it was that delicious.
The next day, we took a drive toward Poughkeepsie. We went into Hyde Park, where FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt lived. We visited both of their homes. (I know, I know, I thought the same thing!) We also visited the Vanderbilt home. Wow, what an amazing estate! Each estate that we visited requested a donation of $10 to walk through the house and take a tour. Since we didn’t really care either way, we opted to just walk around the grounds.
For lunch, we decided to go to the Culinary Institute of America. We sat in a beautiful restaurant while students served us a lovely lunch. For the most part, the food was delicious. We started with a salad, then had the mac and cheese appetizer, which was a perfect blend of cheese in an upscale sort of way. After that, Brian had lamb chops and I had the meat loaf. Unfortunately, the students added way too much pepper and it was not edible.
Following that, we drove a little more into Rhinebeck. There, we found a lovely arts and crafts show. Again, we paid $10 to get in. (I thought it was very interesting that every attraction was $10. I wonder if they took a market research survey of the area and found that $10 was the limit that people would spend on these attraction?)
There was some very lovely jewelry and clothing at the craft fair but everything was super expensive. We stayed there for an hour or two and then drove back toward Poughkeepsie. Once there, we took a little driving tour of the area. It looked like a lovely place for a bike ride, although very hilly!
The next day, we went on a bike ride over the long rail road bridge that spanned across the Hudson River onto a rail trail and some very hilly neighborhoods.
On the way back, I smiled thinking this was a fantastic place to get out of the city and relax for a few days!
