Thanks to a perfect storm of vacation, childcare, and Marriott reward points, Dennis and I turned this Easter weekend into an early 20th anniversary celebration. (Our real anniversary is April 29, but we didn’t see the possibility for a big celebration at that point.) With Noah in Italy for 10 days, we had only to find a place for the girls to land, which we did — at their grandmother’s apartment in Manhattan. It turned into quite the excursion for them as well. As Dennis and I wandered around midtown and Greenwich Village, the girls experienced the Radio City Spring Spectacular after a dinner out. Big doings for them. They loved it. Here are some of the highlights from our weekend, Twisted Tuesday done in Manic Monday style.
GPS: Once we dropped the girls off at grandma’s house, we headed to the Marriott at 49th and Lex, where we scored an amazing 30th-floor room with a slim view (see photo above) for only $3 thanks to Dennis’ reward points. Great room, great location. From there we took the train down to Greenwich Village, one of our favorite haunts from our dating days. We shopped, strolled through Washington Park, had cocktails (a Manhattan and a French 75) at the Malt House, and wandered into St. Anthony of Padua Church on Houston and Sullivan streets just as the choir was warming up for the Easter Vigil. Then we headed to Villa Mosconi, our all-time favorite Village restaurant, for an amazing dinner, which brings us to our next section of this post…
Menu: You know the food is good when I forget to take photos. We had an appetizer of carciofi (artichokes) that was out of this world, followed by zuppa di pesce (Dennis) and fettucini verdi alla bolognese (me), all washed down with a carafe of Chianti. If you get the chance, go to this wonderful spot on MacDougal Street, where the pasta is all homemade and everything is about as authentic as it can get this side of the ocean. Here’s the zuppa di pesce:
Viewfinder: Some other shots from our weekend…
A window of St. Anthony’s shipwreck off the coast of Sicily, from St. Anthony of Padua Church in Soho:
My steampunk bracelet, a gift from Dennis from one of my favorite Village shopping spots. (I also scored two dresses — only $10 each — at the same market and a beautiful red leather bag from another Village shop.) “Sculpture on your wrist,” that’s how the salesman/artisan described the bracelet below, which caught my eye as soon as I walked into his stall of goodies. The warped antique watch face is supposed to be reminiscent of Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” with its melting clocks. The blue piece is for the earth, and the middle piece with the gear in between is the moon, or so he said. True or not, I loved the story and the bracelet.
Dining at Villa Mosconi:
On Easter morning, we grabbed delicious New York bagels at Zucker’s Bagels & Smoked Fish before heading to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Mass with Cardinal Dolan. Although the altar is still covered in scaffolding, you can see in the photo how beautiful the restored portions of the cathedral look. It’s breathtaking, as is the exterior.
We capped off our morning, before heading to Dennis’ mom’s apartment for Easter dinner, with a double cappuccino. Check out that foamy artwork:
Soundtrack: So many songs could fit this past weekend, from Handel’s Messiah, which the choir was singing as we recessed out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, to John Lennon’s Imagine, which a street artist was performing on the subway platform as we waited for the E train. But this is what popped into my head just now when I tried to sum up this weekend with a song, only we took a Chrysler minivan rather than a Greyhound bus down that Hudson River line.
https://youtu.be/UFlsXgw_SFE
