Nathan and I went to Vermont last week for our anniversary and for Baby Dog's birthday (they're a day apart) and it was the best. We haven't taken a real vacation together (I equate a real vacation to mean a trip that's taken purely for the purposes of doing nothing) since Jamaica in 2011, so this was long overdue and worth the wait.
Shockingly, it didn't take us that long to get there - only four hours by car. And the route itself was gorgeous pretty much the whole way there.
We stayed at the Kimpton Taconic for a few reasons:
- I'd stayed at a Kimpton before in Palm Beach (although they appear to have cut ties with that hotel in Florida at the moment) and it was a great experience
- It's located in the middle of a very small town
- They have a wrap-around front porch with rocking chairs
- They have free bikes you can sign out from the lobby
- They're extremely dog-friendly (ie. no extra charge & they got Baby Dog a GIFT for christsake)
- They have a (small, but still great) pool
- We were able to secure one of the more private cottages that sit right next to the hotel itself
And honestly, it was a really great hotel. They had a free wine & small snacks reception every night from 5-6pm, which was lovely. Their restaurant The Copper Grouse had really good food (especially the chicken). It rained one night while we were sitting on the front porch and maybe that doesn't sound romantic, but oh man... listening to rainfall on a wrap-around Victorian porch in late summer should be on every person's checklist at some point in life.
On the first night, we had dinner at Ye Olde Tavern, which was dimly lit and really nice. They had a policy of no cell phones and oh man, why doesn't every restaurant have this already.
We also took the bikes one day into town to the Northshire Bookstore, which was great. We then, foolishly, rode the bikes three more miles to get burgers at Zoey's Double Hex Restaurant because we thought it was much closer than it was in reality. I mean, I'm glad we did it because it turned out to just be funny, and the burgers were actually incredible, but good god was that a hot day.
We drove up to see Mount Equinox on the Skyline Drive, which was more beautiful than I can express.
The drive up the mountain only takes about twenty minutes, so it's such a nice thing to do in the afternoon on a clear day. It was so crazy quiet up there too, if you're anywhere near this town this is something you should definitely do.
Such a beautiful town, such a lovely trip.