B&B Mini Vacation

Have you ever stayed at a bed and breakfast?  Every now and then my husband and I get the itch to get away from reality for a couple of days.  All we want to do is relax and eat delicious food.  For us the perfect answer is to stay at a B&B.  We’ve been to a few in VT and CT, but this time we headed to the Deerfield Inn, in Massachusetts.

We stumbled upon Champney’s Restaurant & Tavern by accident last year, on our way home from Quebec City.  We were looking for a place to eat and didn’t want to eat fast food.  (I don’t mind fast food but I have this thing that I don’t want it to be the last meal of a vacation.  Is that weird?)

Anyway, I found Champney’s online while we were driving down I-91 through VT.  It was about 10 minutes away from the highway and got good reviews so we decided to try it.  We were SO glad that we took a chance because the food was uh-mazing.  Before I had finished my meal that day, I told my husband we had to return.  The way you walk in to the restaurant you walk right past the desk area for the Deerfield Inn and my husband suggested someday we just come back and stay for a couple of days.

We contemplated where to get away for Memorial Day weekend (for quite a while actually, with several failed theories) and then we remembered Champney’s.  Voila, we had a destination at a cute bed and breakfast where we conveniently already knew the food would be great.

The Inn is a quintessential New England B&B.  The photo above is the room that we stayed in.  Super cute, right?  We loved the ambiance and the staff was wonderful.

What’s there to do in Deerfield?  The Inn is located right in the historic district of Deerfield (called Old Deerfield actually).  You walk out of the Inn and you are surrounded by old homes (some from back in the 1600s!), an immaculately maintained academy, various other interesting buildings, and even a museum.

You can take a guided tour of the town or you walk around on your own.  We choose to walk around on our own because we wanted to take our time walking around and taking pictures.  The weather made a lot of the photos come out a bit muted, but our choices were to take pictures on the gloomy day, or to take them in the rain.  We chose gloomy.

We felt like we were transported back in time.  The buildings and homes were beautiful, old, but stunning.

While we were in the area we visited the Yankee Candle Flagship Store which totally blew me away.  I thought they just sold a bunch of candles, but it is so much more.  You are given a map when you enter the store.  Yes, it’s so big that you need a map (and we still got a bit turned around a couple times).  The store has something for everyone.  The store was broken into sections for kitchen merchandise, making your own candles, clearance items, German things, Christmas decorations, toys, candy, a food court, bath accessories, home decorations, and sections devoted to old style candles and to things for a man cave.  Naturally every single section had candles that smelled like things for that theme, but not surprisingly, one of the sections was for candles.  Picture the store at the mall, only like 10 times bigger.  The food court even had a Ben & Jerry’s where we enjoyed ice cream (twice!).  It really didn’t matter how many times my husband tried to explain how big the place was, I was still entirely unprepared for the sheer enormity I was in for.

We also visited the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory.  It’s cool because all of the butterflies roam free while you walk around in a large room that feels like a garden.  I use the term “cool” loosely because… well, as embarrassing as this is to admit to you, I have to say that I panicked a bit because there are a lot of butterflies flying around, way more than I expected.  I am a weenie.  Yes, I got overwhelmed by butterflies.  Stop laughing.  My husband had no issues (of course), and I did get used to it after a while.  We got a lot of great photographs up close and personal to pretty bugs that you really just don’t see out in the wild around here.

The pictures below show some of the tenants, and yes, the first one really is as huge as it looks.

Old Deerfield is a small town that’s kind of out of the way and in the middle of nowhere so if you’re staying for more than a day or so then we recommend bringing something to occupy your down time, like a good book to read.  I don’t get to read often at home because I’m so busy, but reading in our room or somewhere outside on vacations is a treat for me.  I started reading Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts.  I’m about half way through it and I love it.  It’s a romance and mystery.

Where do you go to eat?  Champney’s.  We love the food so much that we had every meal there.  Breakfast is complimentary to guests that stay at the Inn and when every meal is delicious we took advantage of eating there as much as we could.  Also, there are not many other restaurant options in or around Deerfield.

You must, must, must stop at Richard’s Candy Kitchen.  The chocolate is unbelievably delicious.  We tried a couple of truffles but the chocolate covered toffee was our favorite.  In fact, their chocolate covered toffee is the best we’ve ever had which is saying a lot because that’s our chocolate of choice when we visit a chocolate shop so we have lots of versions to compare to.

I love all of our adventures together and can’t wait for our next one.  🙂