Florence Griswold ran a boarding house in Old Lyme in the early 1900’s.  Many Impressionist artists of the time were drawn to the beauty of Old Lyme and chose to stay exclusively in her home, which eventually became a sort of bohemian artists colony.

The grounds of the museum are really quite beautiful – with several gardens and views of the Lieutenant River.  I spent quite a bit of time taking pictures of the house and the gardens before actually entering the museum.  I apologize for the quality of the photos – I didn’t take the good camera to begin with and then later realized my white balance was set weird.  D’oh!

Once inside, we watched a couple of informative videos about Florence and the house and one of one of the exhibits, and then we spent some time looking at all the art.  We then went on a tour of the house, which has been completely restored to circa 1910, when so many of the artists stayed there.  It was particularly fascinating to see all the painted panels in the home.  The dining room and many other rooms in the house have paintings on the panels of the walls that were done by some of the artists staying there.  One would actually have to be invited to paint a panel and it was considered quite the honor to get that invitation.

The exhibit that I probably enjoyed the most, though, was The Rambles  – a huge outdoor sculpture of woven sticks and branches overlooking the The Lieutenant River.  It was pretty incredible – you could even walk through it!

After more wandering around the grounds and a quick stop at the gift shop, we decided it was about time to find some lunch.  After reading a few reviews on Yelp, we decided on the The Morning Glory Cafe, which was just a couple minutes (if that) down the road from the museum.   This ended up being the perfect choice for our afternoon out.  It had outdoor seating, with views of the river, and a simple menu consisting mostly of sandwiches and salads – which is just what we were looking for.

I chose the Veggie Glory Wrap, which had onions, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, and spinach and provolone cheese, served along side a nice crispy order of their Sweet Potato Fries.

Mom had the MGC Panini, which looked amazing – Prosciutto with roasted red peppers, basil and Feta, served with fries.

After lunch, we ran a couple of errands and finished our day with a stop at the Old Lyme Ice Cream Shoppe, where I had the best thing ever!  No really, the best thing ever.  I had Sam Adams Double Chocolate Bock ice cream.  I have been saying for the longest time now that someone needs to combine two of my favorite things – ice cream and beer – and they did it!  And it was amazing…  It was like a really good chocolate ice cream with just a little kick at the end.  Perfect.

Here’s mom enjoying her cone outside the shop.  I thought the shop was absolutely adorable.  I honestly think I would make a trip down to Old Lyme just for the ice cream!

It really was a perfect afternoon – took a beautiful drive, saw some great art, ate an excellent lunch, and finished it all with ice cream (which, of course, is the ideal way to end all things)!

It looks like I easily have the entire Northeast region covered thanks to my recent visit to Portland, ME (which can be read about here and here too), in which we seriously did nothing but eat and drink all weekend long (not that there’s anything wrong with that)!  Now, on to conquer the rest of America’s beer towns!

A few pictures from our various beer adventures over the years:

PS – Kevin will most likely kill me if he sees the picture I posted of him, but when I found it, I really had to share it.  I love it

I’ve been meaning to blog about it all, but there’s just so much!  I thought I’d take some time to share some photos and a few words about some of the awesome places we went, though, to appease the angry masses (Mom and Dad! Ok, mostly mom…)  who have been asking me when I’m going to update.  I’ve decided to break it into parts, because there’s really just too much to put it all into one post.

Our first stop of the evening was Gritty McDuff’s, where Kevin and I each just had a beer while we waited to meet Tom and Heather.  Kevin has fond memories of a Beer Summit he attended at which Gritty McDuff’s actually brought a bar with them while most others just had boring tables.  I, sadly, have no pictures from Gritty’s, but I will say the beer was great and I really liked the relaxed atmosphere.  It was a little crowded, but everywhere was crowded – it was a Friday night.

When Tom and Heather showed up, we finished our beers and wandered around town for a bit and tried to decide where to grab some dinner.  Tom read a review somewhere of a place referred to as a “five star dive bar” and that sounded perfect for us!  To Bull Feeney’s we went!

I started with an Allagash White.  They had a pretty decent selection of beer, but I wanted to drink Allagash when I was in Portland, because they’re local (there are actually a TON of breweries located in Portland).

I also had an order of their fried shrimp, which came with a couple different choices for sauce – a sort of Thai Lime Chili Sauce and an awesome cocktail sauce with a big lump of horseradish in it!  Love it!

After dinner, the night was still young so we decided to continue on to a place Kevin and I had stopped by earlier in the evening (but didn’t stay because it was so crowded) that looked very intriguing – Novarre Res. This place was great!  I wish there was a place like that somewhere near us at home.  They had a really impressive beer menu and great food, too!  To drink, I had the Allagash Fluxus ’10, which was just about the most delicious thing ever!  We also split a Bahn Mi among the four of us.  Awesome, just awesome.

After Novarre Res, we decided it was time to part and head back to our hotel to rest up for the next day, which I will talk about in my next post.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in, because a few regular readers (hi mom and dad) have been harassing me about not updating in awhile and I know they would want to see all the pictures I took while I wasn’t sitting in front of my computer in my cramped sweltering office.