A walk to the Middle ages?

Not exactly but as close as one can be when you don't have a time machine.

It's twelve O'clock local time on this Saturday 13th of November 2010 and I still don't know where I'm going to be in order to have something interesting to say when in an hour or so I meet Sophie as we had agreed 2 or 3 days earlier.

You already know the funny thing about our meetings. She's in Paris (most of the time) and I'm in New York. It's not a virtual encounter. We don't use computers. Only in one occasion I texted her from my phone in the middle of a night outing. And for me it works the same or better as if I were in a regular one with another pal of my daily or weekly routines. Hadn't we scheduled this meeting this Saturday at 5:00 PM GMT, I wouldn't be thinking on doing anything remarkable.

It's getting late and I have to rush my shower before going out because I don't want to be home when the one o'clock hour arrives. And the hot shower gives me the answer where I should go: The Cloisters. And this is odd because I used to work in this neighborhood marketing State sponsored health insurance programs (the same way you market the salvation of the souls) when I moved to NY but until today, until now, I haven't decided to find out what was in there. The signs are everywhere, how to get to The Cloisters. The A train takes you there, the same do the M4 buses. The museum, because that's what The Cloisters is, it's enclosed in the middle of a beautiful park (Fort Tryon) surrounded by an extension of Broadway by the East, the Henry Hudson parkway and the Hudson River by the west and from the hill you can clearly see not very far a nice view of the George Washington Bridge connecting New York with New Jersey.

                                                        
But as it always happens, you tend to visit those places that are closer to your heart or your mind, and these are not necessarily the ones closer to you physically. Curiosity is always a good drive that inspires you to do things but having to work always drains your limited resources of energy. At the end of the day after you are done with your job, one way to regain that energy lost, is putting some comfortable distance from all the things associated with work. And so went The Cloisters until...in a few minutes.

The truth is also that the state of my affections are closer now to visiting and admiring these kind of places than they were before and had I gone there 10 years ago I wouldn't have appreciate it as much I think I can now.

It's 12:49 PM the time and it's Vivaldi playing on the radio. If music like this doesn't put you in a good mood, I don't know which would really ever do.

The time has just arrived and so did I to the Fort Tryon Park. This is a beautiful and gorgeous day in NYC. Excellent day to feast the eyes with all the good things that autumn brings: just incredible blue skies, nature blossoms with one of her best cards presenting incredible patterns of colors; you get almost paralyzed for witnessing such an amazing and awesome spectacle of full beauty in all its splendorous display.
















The entry to the park couldn't be more auspicious. Intimately you know that every step you've done so far has been worthy when you get to read what is in the next picture:

I could go on and on expressing the delight for the discovery of such a lovely place Fort Tryon is but words are insufficient, images are more appropriate for describing the pleasure for being there. Let's see!

Here I have to admit that I was not interested at all for getting to my final destination: The cloisters. Hesitant but happy for the results I've gotten so far, I walked in the direction of the building where the promise was I was going to encounter some treasures from the middle ages. Before let's take a look at what a Cloister is according to Wikipedia.

This is the picture of the exterior. Again, a beautiful blue sky makes an excellent contrast against the darkness provided by the shadows of the building (this take is from the east side).

And here I just realized it is not a good idea, it's a bad combination trying to put together the content of what is inside this building with the amazingness of the fall as it just unravels outside, in Fort Tryon Park.