Phoenicia Diner...

After a lovely night of silence at the Graham & Co we headed back on the road to Brooklyn, driving through the beautiful trees and hills...

We stopped off at the amazing Phoenicia Diner for a spot of breakfast...

 Set back from the road with the amazing backdrop of mountains, the Phoenicia Diner is a renvated original diner serving delicious, fresh, and local sourced food.

 Abi had some buckwheat fruity pancakes and I had one of their breakfast skillets, both were amazing. Everything about the diner was fantastic, the location, the food, the interior design, the branding, the menu layouts, the tshirts... everything - I LOVED it all!

The only questionable thing about the diner was on the kid's menu...

Pasta with butter and cheese?

After our delicious breakfasts and Abi had a chocolate milkshake, we headed back on the road and made our way back to Brooklyn enjoying the amazing scenery along the way.

We had a fast but fantastic 24 hours, and wish we didn't have to wait until the end of September before we're able to go back to Graham & Co, or Peekamoose, or the Phoenicia Diner - but there are plenty of other adventures we can go on in the mean time!

Getting the Hang of it...

The Graham & Co...

We've ben wanting to stay at The Graham & Co since before Hurricane Sandy visited last year, and this weekend we finally go up there (and just in time too, they're fully booked now until September!).

The Graham & Co is a great motel in Phoenicia, it was set up a year and a bit ago and it seems they've just been getting busier and busier ever since.

It's a proper motel, with a row of 12 rooms with an office at the end...

We arrived and went to sign in at the office where we were given a very friendly welcome and a free beer! We were the last people the check in for the night, so I'm glad they didn't give our room away as it sounded like someone was asking if there were any rooms free...

The rooms are all pretty basic (there aren't any TVs or fridges or coffee machines or anything - they did have a lovely Tivoli Radio though) but they're really beautifully decorated and not having any tellies or anything was SO nice.

The Graham & Co was set up by some designery types, and you can tell every aspect of the place has been thought out so well, from the sign on the wall when you arrive to the rustic woodsy rooms, from the little bar/hang out area right down to the soaps in the bathrooms - it's all so nicely done.

 There was a little area which they called 'the garage' where there was a BYOB bar and some tables to sit at, so if you're staying there a while you can put your beers in the fridge behind the bar and then go and help yourself. There are also free bikes so you can go out and explore the town, there's a pool that's open during the summer and at nights they have bonfires that you can go and sit round. It's all so lovely and so so peaceful and quiet, you're just surrounded by hills covered in beautiful trees...

If we could, we'd have stayed there forever - we felt so relaxed and we slept so well, but that might have had something to do with the amazing meal we had...


Abi took me for a very lovely meal at Peekamoose which was about a 10 minute drive down the road further into the mountains. It was like a big but cozy ski lodge, with a log fire outside, big tree trunk chandeliers inside. It was absolutely full, so it was a good job Abi made a reservation - it's funny to think that a restaurant in the middle of nowhere can be so full all night long... but once the food arrived we realised why.

Abi had huge scallops with parsnip crisps and bacon jam! I had a leg of lamb with peas and some minty puree thing... it was all absolutely delicious!

We got back to the Graham & Co to see the bonfire burning away under the stars, and went and had one of the most peaceful night's sleep we've had for ages... silence... all night!

Left To Rust...

Oop The Hoo...

This weekend we swapped the skyscrapers for mountains and took a little trip up to the Catskills...

 After a stressful drive through downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan the roads finally opened up and we could enjoy the amazing scenery and we went higher and higher in the hills.

After about 3 hours (1 of which was just stuck in traffic in town!) we reached Phoenicia, a lovely quaint little town full of wooden houses with porches and shops full of antiques and oddities...

 We stopped off at a place called Brio's for a brick oven-baked pizza, there were a few places to eat so we just went with the one with the most people sitting outside. It was lovely to be able to sit outside and enjoy the amazing sunshine - it was even more lovely to enjoy the sun with a tasty pizza.

Then we had a little mooch before heading back on the road (literally round the corner) before we reached our accommodation for the night.

Out & About...

... and back in Brooklyn