2017 may be the year of Rhinebeck for me and my husband. I feel slightly daunted at the prospect of finding lodging in the Hudson River Valley. Then I remembered that I have the Loungers at my disposal!
I’d love a summary of your Rhinebeck experiences: how many years, how often, where you fly in or stay or which train you use, good places to eat on the way or in the festival, what to be sure to see. Friends you’ve made, bloggers you’ve stalked, goats that stole your heart (q.piper)!
And most importantly, WHAT DID YOU WEAR? Pictures of Rhinebeck sweaters please!
We are also fans of the Met Opera, so that might be part of the trip. Anybody else combine opera and Rhinebeck???
I was just about to put up a “It’s not too soon to talk about Rhinebeck” post. We live close enough to drive (it’s under two hours and a beautiful ride) so I can’t help with housing but the festival itself is wonderful. I rarely miss a year. My best advice would be to let yourself wander. There’s a lot of really wonderful stuff but it can be overwhelming at first. Here are my rules for Rhinebeck:
Don’t buy anything that you can buy at your LYS or online. Go for the really special stuff.
Don’t buy anything from the same vendor two years in a row (except for one alpaca farmer who I adore but every other year my boyfriend gets to pick the yarn.)
If you are driving north to the fairgrounds on the Taconic, the Stewarts at Salt Point has really clean bathrooms. And Salt & Pepper potato chips which are awe-some!!!
The food lines are usually really long but the people you chat with while you wait are lovely.
Buy books last. They’re heavy.
Shop. Animals. Shop. Animals. Eat. Shop. Animals. Break up your day.
If there’s something fantastic, buy it when you see it. It might not be there when you go back for it.
They have an ATM which is both a blessing and a curse.
Bring a little notebook. I always believe I will remember everything but it’s way too much. I’ve been burned by the yarn fumes too many times and now I write things down as I go. Stick a pencil in your pony tail and you’ll be fine.
Accept the fact that Rhinebeck is a full contact sport. It’s crowded and you definitely will be bumping into other people about every 10 seconds. No one ever gets mad about it. The rest of the world could learn a lot from knitters at Rhinebeck.
There are also lots of cool finished products. It’s not just yarn and animals.
We always finish up at the food building. Lots and lots of vendors. Local cheese, wine, small batch treats and everyone gives out samples. We always bring treats home and by home, I mean we eat them in the car.
It’s not just for knitters. My boyfriend is a sheet metal worker and his buddy Joe is also a tinknocker and a punk rock bass player (he’s played with the Pogues). They both love going to Rhinebeck.
The Metropolitan Opera is doing La Boheme on Thursday October 19th. How Moonstruck is that?! If you come in Thursday you could tootle around NYC on Friday and then go to Rhinebeck on Saturday. If you’re on a budget, there are some very nice hotels in Yonkers. It’s a 30 minute train ride to Grand Central and our hotels are a lot less expensive than Manhattan. They all have shuttles to the train and then you can rent a car to go Rhinebeck. If you want to be in Manhattan, The Edison is pretty well priced if you want to be in the Times Square area. There are other cheaper hotels closer to the West Side Highway as well. I also know of a fantastic airbnb in Brooklyn. It’s a garden apartment in a Brooklyn brownstone owned by a James Beard Award winning cookbook writer who is an old friend.
We should do a meet up at Rhinebeck and maybe one in NYC on Friday night. Emmet O’Lunny’s at 50th and Broadway loves the knitters. We go there after Vogue Knitting every year.
i went with friends for the first time this past Oct and had a great time. We flew into LaGuardia and took a cab to the station to take the train to Poughkeepsie, where we rented a car. We had a less than great experience staying at America’s Best Value Inn in Highland. They reported having sewer problems and so some rooms were closed off; two in our group had so share a bed in a room that smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, though the hotel people said no one had smoked there. That was the only negative thing about the whole trip. We also mailed our yarn home and that worked out great.
Just reading all these suggestions again, in anticipation of The Glorious Rhinebeck Ahead. Figuring out Rhinebeck sweater situation; murky as to what to wear.
