The Gilmore Girls Experience
A road trip of three Gilmore Girls fans, from New York to Litchfield County in the search of the soul of Stars Hollow, in the heart of Connecticut. Follow us through the journey we were planning our entire teenage years, celebrating our friendship.
The Gilmore Girls Experience
A few years ago I found out that there was a little town in Connecticut in which Stars Hollows was inspired. Immediately as a Gilmore Girls fan, I started looking into it. Suddenly, there it was: Washington Depot, CT. By that time I was planning a trip to NYC with my family that seemed like the perfect opportunity for a road trip into memorabilia. However, due to a few bad decisions we change our destination.
Not too long ago, I came across two articles that depicted a bunch of small Connecticut towns were, as written, Gilmore Gilrs “comes to life” and so my quest for the perfect friends road trip began again, this time with a more certain future.
See them here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/14/stars-hollow-gilmore-girls-towns_n_5570924.html
When one of my best friends Carolina, proposed me and my other best friend Veronica to go to New York together my dream came to life. Three Gilmore Girls fans on the road to find Stars Hollow. I presented the idea that was accepted at once. So, the panning began.
I consider myself a planner. And so do my friends. Thus, it was not a surprise when I showed them my road trip map, after we settle the dates for our trip.
As soon as we decided when we were going to travel, I turn to my good digital friend: Google. I looked up those articles that triggered the whole idea and started placing marks and pins into the map. So, we decided that the trip was going to begin in New York, driving along the Long Island Sound to our first stop at Yale (with all and its gift shop), then Hartford, then a roundtrip to Kent, and back. Now all we have left to do was the mile to mile planning.
Although Google Maps says the whole trip takes about 5 hours, we decided to make a pit stop to make it more interesting, and a bit longer, so we gave our road trip two whole days to suck in all we can off these quaint towns. After a little search on line (of course, my awesome friend Google came in handy) we found just the place in lovely Kent. We thought Kent was the perfect braking point as it is in the somewhat middle of the “circle”, so it suited perfectly.
For those of you not too familiar with Gilmore Girls, what we were looking for was “a lot of flowers”… “yeah, like a ton of flowers”… “a plethora of flowers”… “a load of flowers”. We were looking for the Cheshire Cat. And there it was, beautiful Fife’n Drum Inn, Room 3 (yes, just like the one the girls got!): The Country Room, with enough space for the three of us and more than enough flowers.
We arrived at JFK and we settled in our little rented apartment, right in the heart of New York and got our little bags packed and ready to start our two day road trip.
We took off early in the morning. We threw all our things in the car we rented and hopped on the Connecticut Turnpike. Argentines drink mate on the road, and we are not the exception. The bad side of it is that mate is basically water, what means a lot of it going in your body, which translates into a lot of technical stops. The good thing of the road we picked is that it is full of trees an at this time of the year that means an orange, red and yellow view. The road was smooth and we had a beautiful day.
First official stop was Yale Univeristy at New Heaven, the Gilmore Family alma mater. I want to start with a proclamation: This place is amazing! “Which means that everybody else in this room not named Lorelai can be equally over the moon about the ‘going to Yale’”.
Ever since I watched the show, I’ve always wanted to come here. I’ve already been here once, but on a holyday (January 1st to be precise) so everything was close and there was almost nobody on campus. This time, although we got here on a chilly Sunday morning, everybody is out, studying or otherwise.
For all of you who don’t have the pleasure I will try to be graphic, so you can picture it: the minute you enter New Haven you can feel Yale all over. The whole place looks like out of a movie. The buildings are breathtaking. Every one of them resembles an old feudal castle. If it’s early in the morning, and no one is around, you almost automatically start whispering, because a normal voice tone seems inappropriate.
We parked near the hockey rink and started walking towards the old campus. We asked for directions and a map at the visitor center. Everyone is nice and welcoming. We did it in our own time but if you are near here check out the schedules and take a walking tour!
“How can I go to Yale with my wall looking like this?” Rory asks. So we go in the gift shop and go crazy with paraphernalia, to do her justice!
So far our trip has been soaked with Gilmore Girls, and now we are soaked with Yale merchandise and gifts. We could basically rename our car the Yale-mobile, and go straight to a Bulldogs game, “when I get back, I’ll teach you the fight song”.
After we finished walking around, we had a coffee at Starbucks and head to Broadway and Elm St. to find “The Yale Bookstore” where we spent an hour trying to figure out what to buy, because “everything” wasn’t an option.
Instead of going straight to Harford, we decided to go straight to our first attraction, which was Huckleberry Hill Bridge. I know this has little to do with Gilmore Girls (as I recall covered bridges where never shown on the show), but to be in the Cover Bridges area and pass them by seemed ridiculous: so there we were. These bridges have a special charm, and a bit of mystery. I was constantly expecting a Sleepy Hollow kind of scene. But sunset did its best to keep us romantic instead of scared.
Then: straight to Litchfield, where we arrived after dusk. The colors on the road where amazing: red, yellow, orange and sometimes purple, on the sky and on the trees. This county has magic everywhere you look.
Litchfield was our first little town and that was exactly what we found: Charming and almost a fairy tale scenario. Pumpkin decorations everywhere reminded me of the first time Jess arrives to Stars Hollows (where autumn seems to be the longest season), and Elvis Costello’s song “This is hell” starts playing. Well, this looks nothing like hell! From my point of view this is as close to heaven you can get.
Its dark outside on a Sunday, nobody is in the streets of Kent and we have trouble finding the Inn. Once we were there we showed ourselves at the counter of the Fife’n Drum Restaurant, where we were handed the key to our beautiful room.
“Okay, room number 3 is all yours. Welcome to the Fife’n Drum Inn.”
The enormous bed is as comfortable as it looked on the pictures of the web site. The flowers are everywhere, just like we wanted. The bathroom size is beyond imaginable, and it looks so pretty!
Hungry as we were, we searched online (yes we do have WiFi) where to go to eat. It is a bit late and everybody closed at 6 pm. In Argentina, dinner time is around 9 pm, so we might be in trouble. The local Chinese restaurant is open, so there we go.
The heat is just perfect for the countryside cold night. We tucked in: It’s the end of our first day of the roadtrip.
Kent is a charming place. We went out for a power walk (actually Caro went out for a run) early in the morning. As we walked along Main Street we’ve got to see beautiful houses and a delightful landscape surrounded by mountains. We tried Pumpkin Cheesecake and Maple Latte at the local Café in Kent in the morning.
On our way to the next stop we found the second covered bridge we intended to visit: The Bulls Bridge. Its little windows look like live works of art, as the rapids go down the Housatonic River. This is one of the oldest bridges that remain open to car traffic and it seems quite in its original shape.
This is a part of the US everyone should visit. It’s full of beautiful woods and meadows, covered in the autumn colors this time of the year and, most of all, full of lovely, friendly people. People like Norm.
Norm Cummings is the former editor of the New Milford local paper (The Greater New Milford Spectrum). He retired a few months ago. He saw us attired with our cameras, taking pictures here and there, and he decided to introduce himself to let us know a little bit more about his beloved town. We really regret not having a picture with him.
New Milford is the biggest of all the towns we are visiting and, in my opinion the most comparable to Stars Hollow. Especially if you walk by Theo’s Downtown Dinner: you expect to see a cranky yet adorable, baseball-caped owner, serving coffee, and glanzing those using their cellphones.
On the next pin mark was Washington Depot. There was one of the articles that brought us here that stated that this was Stars Hollow inspiration. Washington really was an amazing town with a beautiful gazebo in the main square. Here I found one of my favorite houses ever, almost next to the Shepaug River.
The last small town we visited was Woodbury: if you decide to stop to see the sunset on the stairs of the town’s gazebo, it seems like you hear the troubadour singing somewhere nearby. Then… “all you had to say was ‘Welcome to Stars Hollow’”.
On our way to Hartford we stopped at this cool antique shop by the road. Caro bought really cool bargains for twenty dollars, so we have lived the full experience. This is our last stop. We were supposed to visit Hartford on the first day but we were too fascinated with Yale and we decided to leave it for the end. We didn’t not know what to expect. I guess we just assumed we will walk by business men like Richard and D.A.R. ladies like Emily, surrounded by big luxury homes like the one where we have Friday-night dinners.
Instead, on a Monday afternoon, we found the rush hour in Main Street. As it was getting darker and darker and we weren’t practically moving, we took some shots from the car and kept on going back to Manhattan. We were going to drive through Asylum Ave. and admire the mansions that may have belonged to Emily and Richard, but instead we enjoyed the city look of this State Capitol with classic glamour style. We figured that if we weren’t going to avoid rush hour getting in New York either, but at least we would be there early.
“Well I just wanted to make sure we didn’t leave a stone unturned.”
At the end of our wonderful journey we are amazed with everything we have seen and learned. It was a Gilmore Girls inspired road trip, yet we found so much more. We bought antiques, we “found” Luke’s Diner, and we met the sweetest version of Taylor Doose. Also, we visited covered bridges, discovered beautiful sights and tasted delicious new flavors.
-Well how will people know we just took the world’s greatest roadtrip?
-I don’t know.
-I guess they’ll just have to read our stuff.
Be sure to check out the Travel Blog of our Road Trip at http://thegilmoregirlsexperience.traveloca.com/
The Roadtrip
Yale
The Map
Litchfield
The Fife'n Drum Inn
Luke's Diner?
Theo's Downtown Diner at New Milford
Woodbury
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