I’m playing catch up with these blog posts! If you missed my first two blog posts (day 1 and day 2), my husband and I took a four day road trip to Connecticut about a month ago. I blogged about day 1 shortly after we came home, then came down with a virus and didn’t blog about day 2 until three days ago. So now I’m playing catch up and banging out day 3 this weekend, and hopefully day 4 next weekend.
So up until this point, we’ve spent a day and two nights in Mystic, CT. On day 3, we packed up and headed for Hartford, CT where we would spend the next day and a half. Before hitting the road, we made one more trip to the Olde Mystic Village Shoppes that I mentioned in my last blog post.
As someone who enjoys shopping, I really loved this place and its cozy, village feel. There were a lot of shops to see and places to eat, and we managed to find a souvenir for everyone while we were there.
Once we were done shopping, we hit the road for Hartford, but we did have to stop for lunch. My husband found an Indian restaurant called Swad Tandoori online, and we decided to check it out.
The food was delicious! We ordered garlic naan bread, samosas, and chicken tikka masala. Garlic naan bread and chicken tikka masala are staples for my husband and I whenever we order from an Indian restaurant, and Swad Tandoori did not disappoint. The service was also good!
Sometime in the afternoon, we finally arrived at our hotel in Hartford. We booked a one night stay at The Goodwin Hotel. The pictures online looked fancy, and the cost per night was more than what we usually look for, but we thought it might be fun to try since it was only for one night.
To be honest – we didn’t love it. I think we were both definitely glad we tried it, just to know we tried it, but we wouldn’t try it again. The hotel is located at the corner of an intersection in the city, and doesn’t have its own parking lot. We had the option to pay for valet parking, or find our own street parking. We decided to pay for valet parking because it would be too much of a headache to find street parking in the city, but we didn’t love that our car wasn’t easily accessible if we needed something from it.
Inside, the hotel actually was fancy looking, and it was definitely interesting to be in a hotel that was so different from any others we had been in. We settled into our room, and then decided to walk around and explore the area around the hotel – except there was nothing to explore. We found a park to walk around, but aside from that, there was maybe one shop and a couple restaurants – the rest were office buildings and empty storefronts.
After walking around for a bit, we went back to the hotel and lounged around until dinner time. For dinner, we had found a Vietnamese-inspired restaurant called Banh Meee around the corner from the hotel. We picked up an appetizer (I can’t remember what it was called now), a couple subs, and a bubble tea for dinner.
Fed and happy, we watched some tv in bed before calling it a night. Overnight, we realized we could hear quite a bit of noise from the hallway. The elevator was around the corner from our room, and we could hear it every time it dinged. Then something that sounded like a luggage cart rolled by very loudly at some point and startled me out of my sleep.
Overall, I think we were glad we tried The Goodwin Hotel, just to experience a fancier hotel one time, but I think we much prefer a basic hotel that’s not in the city. We like the quieter setting, and being able to hop in the car and drive somewhere whenever we like, as opposed to a noisy city setting where our car isn’t accessible, and there’s nothing to do within walking distance.
I hope you enjoyed seeing my road trip outfit and pictures from the Olde Mystic Villages Shoppes and all the food! Stay tuned for day 4 – the final installment of this mini travel series!
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