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Published: July 25th 2010
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We travelled by train from New York's
Grand Central Station to the small town of New Hamburg in the Hudson Valley. It was just under 2 hours and the scenery alongside the Hudson River was spectacular.
Why New Hamburg? Well, our friends Art and Gillian live in nearby Wappinger Falls and they asked us to get ff the train there rather than in Poughkeepsie. It made life much easier and before long we were relaxing in their lovely house and meeting the grandchildren! We had a really nice time staying with them and our friendship blossomed. We had, after all, just met them briefly in Buenos Aires, but we knew back then that we would be seeing them again. When you invite us to come and stay, you'd better be expecting us because we WILL come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
During our stay we visited Poughkeepsie. There we saw the old fashioned
Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge which has now been redeveloped as a walkway over the Hudson. It is 1.28 miles long and makes a nice there-and-back walk offering great views up and down the river. The nicer looking
Mid Hudson Bridge (see panoramic photo) can also be traversed making it a 3.6 mile round
trip but you have to contend with traffic and fumes so we just did the pedestrian bridge!
We were also taken down to the town of Cold Spring. This is a beautiful little place full of arty places and antique shops. It's close to the West Point military zone and was the site of an arms foundry, hence the cannon by the river. Art and Gillian also introduced the town to Argentine Tango dancing some time ago and they posed for a photograph on the bandstand where it all began! We saw some young men catching blue crabs and they showed us their catch so far. Impressive. From the river front we went to the pub! Well, where else would we go on a hot day??!! The pub is in the old railway station and is full of memorabilia. The beer is pretty good too and the air conditioning at the bar was most welcome.
For our final evening with them, we were taken to Hyde Park where we went to a drive-in cinema to see
The Sorcerer's Apprentice. On arrival we were a little taken aback to be greeted by a policeman. Apparently the cinema had been
booked for a private function. Nice of them to advertise that on their website!! Not to be deterred, we found out that it was Art's former employer, IBM, who had booked the event. Hearing that Art was an IBM retiree, we were allowed in and even got free popcorn and soda. It wasn't just us, everyone got that!! It was a great experience but the film didn't live up to expectations. It did show us the sights of New York City and brought back some fond recent memories, but the blend of
Harry Potter and
The Mummy just didn't quite work as well as it could have done.
So, Art and Gillian, thank you so much for allowing us to be your guests. It was a pleasure staying with you both and lovely to meet your family. Hopefully we'll meet again in the not-too-distant future.
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jack
non-member comment
Travelling
That's Good. I was enjoying too in traveling.