The Cloisters

We spent Friday at The Cloisters. What an other-worldly place! The gardens were magical and beautiful with medicinal and edible and even poisonous plants. The herb room with all the drying herbs was the most delicious thing I’ve ever smelled. Think of prying the lid off a tin of the best loose leaf tea then multiply that sensation exponentially.

We sat here for lunch and enjoyed sights of interesting carvings hidden on all sides of the columns and walls surrounding us, the birds that flew over the roof and into the garden, and the flowering plants and  busy bumble bees. 

We watched two juvenile pigeons peck, peck, peck their mom and each another for several minutes. The nest was in one of the fruit trees inside a cloistered garden and close enough to touch. 

So many images and symbols to interpret and inspire the imagination! 

We begin Cycle 2 on The Middle Ages in Classical Conversations soon, so the timing of this visit was perfect. As we admired and discussed each piece, we could often recognize the images from the Bible stories we know, or place it on our Classical Conversations timeline, or locate an items original place using our memorized geography facts, or use our Latin Grammar to puzzle out meanings of words. I think we enjoyed pouring over the details drawn on the playing cards and in the illuminated books best of all. We were thrilled to see a set of the playing cards in the gift shop. We use a set of playing cards everyday for our math calculating games in Quick Flip Arthimetic, so we got a set to bring home for our games.