A Weekend of Romance in New York
Photo by Berellian
It’s rare that we get a full weekend away as a couple, so when we do we like to make the most of it. Where better to go for a bit of extravagance than New York City? With glitzy lights, beautiful green spaces and all of the best excesses in life, it seemed the obvious choice. So we packed our bags and set off – on quite the road trip – to the Big Apple.This is how we spent our weekend!
Dinner at Carbone
Starting off the weekend with a bang is always the best way to go about things, so when Brady suggested dinner at Carbone, I was hardly going to say no! Carbone is famous for its delicious and totally extravagant menu – this place really is somewhere for only the most special occasions. Walking in to the restaurant, you’re hit by the beautiful decor first; great big chandeliers hang from the ceilings, whilst huge paintings line the walls. The whole restaurant is set out like a film set, it’s simply stunning.
Whilst I could wax lyrical about the decor all day, the food is what we were there for and we were certainly not disappointed. Unusually for me, I was really hankering for a salad, so I ordered the Ceasar Salad – be aware, this restaurant is not one for dieters! The portion sizes are absolutely huge! The salad was crisp and fresh, served with crunchy croutons, top quality chicken and a cheesy drizzle, which was truly heavenly. Hubby had the clam linguine, which came with, not one, but four different types of clams, each cooked as perfectly and delicately as the pasta. It was Italian-American heaven.
Watching the Game
Photo by Doug Kerr /
Whenever we go away, we indulge each other in one evening of doing exactly what we’d each like. Well, during this trip Brady decided to spend his evening at the football. Normally I go into these things with an open mind, but I’m really not much of a football fanatic, so I wasn’t too excited – I just kept in mind my afternoon of gardens the next day.
To my surprise, we had a great evening watching the New York Giants play against the New England Patriots. Of course, the evening was made all the sweeter when the Giants won! Next time we’ve agreed that we’ll have some fun with Fox Bet’s latest NFL offerings – there’s nothing quite like having a great date night teamed with the excitement of a little bet.
New York Botanical Gardens
For ‘my’ afternoon we headed to the Bronx, where part of Bronx Park makes up The New York Botanical Garden. This enormous site is home to more than a million plants and features beautiful specimens from all across the world. In all honesty, we only spent a couple of hours here, but I could easily have spent a full day walking around all the little individual gardens. They have more than 50 different ones, each with a distinctly different feeling, be it desert roses or lush green forest.
Perhaps my favourite is the garden with a lazily trickling waterfall, but it was a greenhouse that really caught both of our imaginations. The Haupt Conservatory is a truly beautiful reminder of vintage gardening, made in the 1890s from wrought iron, this greenhouse is a spectacular building.
Our final highlight was probably the herbarium. After our evening of beautifully seasoned Italian food, some of the scents of fresh herbs had our mouths watering. The herbarium is one of the largest in the world with more than 7 million different species; I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d struggle to name one hundred of them.
We finished our dreamy afternoon with a picnic by the Fountain of Life, which sits looking out across the Bronx River. The fountain is beautiful, with bronze galloping horses and bathers, but the view is even more special. With a glass of bubbly and a sandwich in hand we toasted to a perfect weekend.
NANCY says
Nice post. Great pictures.