The Cloisters

 

We finally made it up to the Cloisters! It is the second part of the MET where the medieval collection is housed. The Cloisters is really cool; it is an actual French monastery that Rockefeller had taken apart and shipped piece by piece to Manhattan and put back together. The perfect place for the city to display all of it's medieval art, right?

 

The collection up there was fantastic. I went down into the treasury where all there were several crypt on display. I felt like Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, but with all out the rats thank goodness. There was one room that was set up like a chapel with speakers playing choir boys singing like you were in an actual service. It was amazing! The main piece we wanted to see were the unicorn tapestries. I have talked about this several times on the blog, but Cosette is obsessed with horses right now. Does not matter what kind of horse it is she loves them. She really liked the tapestries. She kept saying "Unicorn!" over and over again. She loved it. The most famous piece we saw was the Merode alter piece. It is  the most famous because it is a really good example of Northern Renaissance alter pieces. There is a lot of beautiful religious symbolism in the piece. It is not big which means it was probably commissioned for private use, but well worth the trek up to see.

 

I will say this, the Cloisters is not stroller friendly. We took our double up there and there are no public elevators. We had to ask to use the employee elevator which we had to wait for an employee to accompany us and we barely fit with the stroller. Next time we will take our trusty McLaren.

 

 

The architecture is absolutely amazing! It makes me miss our time in Cambridge so so much. I cannot wait to go back and visit. Lyndon is an architecture buff and taught me a lot about it. So as you can see in this photo the windows have a sort of stamped out. That means that this is was built in the early gothic style.

 



It was a bit chilly that day and I am super paranoid about my children being cold when they are outside. It is the worst when you are out and about and your kid is crying because they are cold and there is not much you can do.  So Henry is in his "snow" suit that is too big for them. It really does not get much cuter than that, except for him in his new snow suit that is his actual size.



 

The way these vines are growing up the rope is so neat. It adds so much to the authenticity of the garden. It did feel like we were in a European garden.

 

As you can see we spent most of our time in the court yards. It was a lovely fall day and Cosette could run to her heart's content. Plus places to sit down so I could nurse the baby. There were interesting varieties of herbs being grown. The most interesting I thought was mandrake, which for all you Harry Potter fans is the ugly baby plant in the Chamber of Secrets that is used to wake up all those who have been petrified. I did not know it was a real plant until now. Thank you Cloisters for telling me.

Lyndon with his dashing mustache he is sporting right now. I really like it. I think he is pulling it off well.

Cosette running through the garden.

Best picture I could get of her there. We will tell her smile for the camera and she will say "cheese" and look every where but at us.

Lyndon sitting on his wall. He likes to sit and stand on top of walls to get pictures taken when available.

We did not get to see as much as we wanted but got our appetites whetted to go back and explore some more. Next time we will take a lighter stroller.