Day 5.196: Sunny Sunday in New Paltz

On Sunday, we headed down the Hudson valley to visit New Paltz and, in particular, Historic Huguenot Street.

We arrived in late morning and had a quick look around the rather nice visitor center which is in one of the early 18th century houses that are the the heart of Historic Huguenot Street.

After that we took a short walk down the rail trail in search of some lunch so that we could be back in time for a walking tour of some of the houses.

The rail trail led us to the Water Street Market - a mixture of shops, cafes and small outdoor spaces with people playing chess near to water features. It was bustling - presumably partly due to the chalk art festival that was going on (we didn't make it to see the artwork).

We chose to have lunch sitting outside at a cafe on the upper floor (basically sitting on the roof!). Harvest Cafe turned out to be something a little special. Not cheap, but very good indeed.

Here is our food - Exile #2 had a sandwich turned into a gluten-free salad and I had the same sandwich (roasted vegetables and goat cheese) in its normal form.  Also pictured E5N1's kid's meal.  Not your average presentation and, if you hadn't guessed, it tasted at least as good as it looked!

After savouring our lunch, we had a bit of a rushed walk back to catch the 1pm walking tour at HHS.

It started at the visitor's center (the 'fort' - top left - required by the English government as a stronghold against attacks by the native tribe who had sold the land to the settlers) and ended at the reconstruction of the first stone church in the community (top right) and also took in two houses.

The main part, where the rest of these photos were taken  was spent in a house that was being opened to the public for the first time (we were in the second tour) after a restoration project spanning more than ten years.

It's known as the Abraham Hasbrouck house although their research has shown it was built by the son of the original settler (who had built a wooden house on the same site).  The community was founded by twelve families who settled there having arrived from an area of northern France which is now Belgium.  They were french-speaking protestants fleeing from Roman Catholic persecution and because the area was dominated by these few families for a long time there it was remarkably preserved, and many of the families donated homes and belongings to HHS to keep this piece of history alive.


The house that Daniel Hasbrouck built for first himself and his mother and later extended for his wife and children has been beautifully restored and populated with artifacts from the 1720's during the time that Daniel's widow lived as head of the family after his death.

The personal nature of the history and the overwhelming enthusiasm of the guides made this tour really special and kept the attention of us all.  E5N1 is pictured asking some questions in the cellar where we learned about the African slaves that are known to have lived and worked down there.

After the tour we went back down to the market for a cold drink and then returned to Huguenot Street to walk a trail by the river and see some nature.

The trail took us by a beautiful community garden, through a wildlife sanctuary on the bank of the Wallkill River and then over some farmland (we'd over-shot where we were supposed to loop back) through some fairly British-looking countryside inhabited by this monarch butterfly and the hawk I posted on the day.

Altogether a rather fantastic day out and well-worth the 90 minute drive each way!