The Next Best Thing to a European Vacation

We live in Westchester County in New York, which provides plenty of scenic areas to visit, particularly if you're into farms, foliage, rivers and such. But whenever we get tired of all that bucolic goodness, we're happy to be situated so close to Manhattan and its wealth of (albeit grimier) activities.

The biggest problem with trekking into the city with kids is the logistics. Our preferred method of transportation is via car, but parking is always a hassle and costs the same as a week's worth of groceries (organic groceries, at that). Then there's the part where we walk around the city streets, which didn't seem like a big deal when I was working there every day, but now with kids in tow, all I see is a minefield of dog poop and trash and Citi Bikes. Still, I'm told that children actually live in the city – thrive in it, in fact – so once in awhile we make the trip out to experience all it has to offer.

So I got it into my head that I wanted my children to visit a museum to, you know, get cultured up. We'd been to the Natural History Museum several times already, and they love it, but we'd yet to visit an art museum. I'd been to the Met and MoMA as a kid, but only on school trips and only under duress. It wasn't until I was older that I began to appreciate museums, but even now, I never get the urge to go and soak in the arts. I blame it on the fact that I was practically raised a Philistine, and therefore never really developed a core appreciation for these things.

I wanted my children to be brought up on the arts, hence, the desire to introduce them to museums at an early age. My husband, Paul, thought this was a ridiculous idea, seeing as how the kids will tire of any situation in less than an hour, even when it specifically involves kid-friendly activities such as bouncy castles or ponies. How were they supposed to tolerate the hushed, hands-off environment of an art museum? It wasn't an unfair concern.

I turned to the Internet to help me figure out which art museum would best tolerate an invasion of small children. Most, I learned, would probably not tolerate it well at all. Finally, I settled on the Cloisters, which is a branch of the Met that's situated in Upper Manhattan and features medieval art and architecture. It seemed perfect – there were unicorn tapestries, gold treasures and outdoor gardens. And the museum itself looks like a castle. If ever there was an art museum geared toward small children, this was it.

We made the trip out on a beautiful, late-summer day, making sure to arrive when the museum opened. Because if there's anything I've learned from my five years of parenting, it's that when you go anywhere with kids, you go as early as possible. We'd have been at the Cloisters at 5 a.m. if they'd let us in. As it were, we arrived at 10 and found free parking right outside the main entrance. (The parking is limited, however, and completely filled by the time we left a couple of hours later.)

My kids liked venturing into the museum, which really does resemble a medieval castle (my daughter even mistook it for the Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios). There were many stone steps to climb and curved wooden doors to pull open. I pointed out all the stained-glass windows, introducing them as "really old sun catchers" (my kids are obsessed with painting sun catchers). We checked out the Unicorn tapestries first, which were amazing. They were much larger than I imagined, and I just couldn't believe that I was finally seeing them in person – and that they've always been located just half an hour from me.

Next we wandered into a beautiful chapel that housed the tombs of crusaders and counts. I didn't want to explain what a tomb was to my kids, and luckily neither of them asked. Leah seemed content to just sit in one of the rickety wooden chairs and stare up at the religious statues and tall stained-glass windows.

We also checked out the treasury room. I thought it was a lot of fun, with its gold goblets and brightly illustrated prayer books. I pointed out a medieval drinking straw to the kids; it was made of silver and appeared to even have a bendy feature, but upon closer examination, this proved to not be true.

After walking through a few more rooms, the kids were growing tired of the art, so we wandered out into one of the gardens. This was my favorite part of the Cloisters. It was like stepping into the European countryside. The herbs smelled fantastic.

The kids were re-energized by the sun and began making their way up and down the rows. Paul and I were free to examine the plants and their labels, which indicated that these types of plants were grown in medieval Europe for everything from food to art materials to medicines and poisons. It was truly fascinating.

We also enjoyed the views of the Hudson from the garden.

We concluded our trip to the Cloisters with – what else? – snack time, because God forbid we should go anywhere without a break for veggie chips. The kids sat down on the steps leading into the garden and munched away happily, unaware of the fact that they were on their way to becoming more refined and sophisticated citizens of the world. You're welcome, children.