Living Our Bucket List Life: Jersey City (September 2014)

My spouse and I visited Jersey City in late September 2014 to celebrate his birthday. Our main reason for staying in Jersey City (rather than just across the river in lower Manhattan) was to dine at Thirty Acres, a restaurant that we had been hearing a lot about in recent years.

We arrived at our hotel, the Doubletree, around noon, and walked around the city and down the waterfront promenade, stopping in at the nearby Irish festival. We had hoped to find a place to eat outdoors on the water, but no luck - many businesses are closed on weekends, seeming to cater to the weekday business crowd only. We ate lunch at HopsScotch, followed by pre-dinner drinks at Dorian's Red Hand, and topped off by an amazing dinner at Thirty Acres. on the way home from dinner, we strolled through a very small but cute area of Jersey City, then walked down to the waterfront promenade to view Manhattan across the river all lit up at night. The next morning, we enjoyed brunch at Batello, with a view of the harbor and river before departing for home.

We enjoyed Jersey City, but we felt about it the way we felt about Brooklyn - the housing rates are still quite high (although not Manhattan prices), and you are left to look across the river longingly at the place where you really want to live.

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