The Darien location is one of 58 Bridgettine convents in 19 international locations round the world, and the order’s solely visitor home in the United States that’s obtainable to guide for in a single day stays. All the European convents—together with the mom home in Rome and lesser-known areas in Estonia, Finland, and Switzerland—equally open their doorways to weary vacationers trying to find respite, a distinctive vocation that has earned the Bridgettines the nickname “the order of hospitality.”
Charging simply $150 a night time for a room and three meals a day, Vikingsborg has develop into a fashionable seaside retreat amongst in-the-know artists, writers, and neighbors in search of quiet. But as one visitor is fast to inform me, “this isn’t a Hilton.”
Instead, the convent’s 9 bookable visitor rooms are extra akin to sleeping over at your grandmother’s home, swaddling you in a acquainted, matronly feeling of being watched over and cared for from a distance. Antique picket dressers are laden with lace doilies, and in most corners, you’ll discover floral upholstered armchairs deep sufficient to tuck in your knees. In the principal lobby, crystal chandeliers twinkle with the reflection of a nine-foot-tall Christmas tree. Porcelain angels and lengthy crimson candlesticks adorn a small brick hearth that is been painted inexperienced.
“People find great comfort and peace and welcome here that you don’t get someplace else,” says Lynn, a frequent visitor from a close by city, who requested to be recognized by her first title solely. “But it’s not for everybody either.”
I grew up in Norwalk, lower than 10 minutes away, however had by no means heard of the convent till one summer time in highschool, when my dad paddled throughout the river to their non-public dock and returned house with tales of lunching with the nuns. When I arrive at the Darien practice station, over a decade has handed since my dad’s preliminary go to, however little or no has modified from what he described.
My cab driver acknowledges the convent’s handle in Tokeneke, a picturesque, and very rich, nook of city. “It’s very peaceful there,” he tells me, and says that he feels extra calm simply by driving via the entrance gates. “They are good people,” he provides. “And good cooks too.”
As we make our well past the gate and down a lengthy winding driveway, I can scent that we’re nearing the water. By the entrance, I lock eyes with a stone sculpture of St. Christopher, the patron saint of vacationers, standing guard atop a massive boulder creeping with moss. In his arms, a child Jesus with mysteriously mature eye luggage flashes a peace signal.
Already, I really feel myself settling into the unhurried quiet of winter in Connecticut, a suburban hibernation that when made me seethe with boredom. But with my default response to “how are you?” having in some way now develop into “busy,” as if that itself was an emotion or feeling, I lately discovered myself craving these sleepy gray days with nothing to do and nowhere to be.
Through the glass-paned door, I watch a small lady in a black behavior swish down the staircase. Her title is Sister Sebastian, she tells me as I observe her inside, one of the six Bridgettine nuns who stay collectively in a smaller home on premise. While my days listed here are spent blissfully idle, theirs are intensely scheduled: Each day, they commit six to seven hours to every day prayer, the first starting at 6:10 a.m., whereas intermittently finishing numerous, equally demanding hospitality duties—from Costco grocery runs and getting ready visitor meals to weed whacking the impeccably manicured garden.