Williamstown: A Perfect Sunday Destination

I am trying to remember the last time I was in Williamstown MA. Sadly, even reaching back through all of my blog archives, I could not find a single entry recalling those trips my father and I made to this college town, so it must have been before 2004. Until that year, I had a solid 25 years in a row visiting Williamstown with my dad, usually the second week of October. I remember it was always the first game of the world series.

Today I returned to this pretty little town with Devorah, and I thought about those Saturdays with my dad when we would visit the bookstore, pop in and watch some of the Williams football game, and visit the art museums there. I was both sad to think of a tradition that’s passed on and happy to be sharing the pretty village with my love.

The downtown is nearly all new…a result of fires and Williams College redevelopment. One new addition is an impressive cafe called Tunnel Coffee where an assembly line produces your lattes and creamy hot chocolates with a crisp efficiency. I always wince when I stop into a busy place like this, wishing our cafe was located within sipping distance of so many well-heeled college kids.

We drove over to the Clark art museum where I was hoping to hear a lecture on fourteenth century portraits, but we got the dates wrong, so no lecture. Still, we got a chance to view engravings from the 15th century by Albrecht Dürer which portrayed the tortured world of angels feeding the bible to humans and naked witches. Seeing a short video of the process of scraping a sharp tool against a copper plate made me admire the artist’s incredible detail.

Part of what makes going to Williamstown fun is the drive–the winding Route 2 takes you through such pretty country and then driving through the forlorn mill town of North Adams and finally, into the beauty of the compact village. It’s memories all right, but it’s also a new set of memories, since life goes on, and choosing the right people to share it with makes all the difference.