Wanderlust: Bainbridge House

This post is long overdue. 

When traveling with Captain Awesome and Little HRH, I make sure that we always get to experience something new and unique. Thankfully, we are the kind of family that have very diverse interests. The trip-planning challenge does not lie much in coming up with fresh travel ideas, but in choosing from my long list of options on where to go next.

When my parents confirmed they were coming over for a week-long visit in November, I thought would be a great idea to add a Princeton day trip in their [pretty empty] itinerary. One of the places we got to cover was the Bainbridge House. It is one of quite a number of ancestral-homes-turned-libraries-slash-museums in the Princeton borough. Today, it serves as one of two locations that house exhibitions curated by the Historical Society of Princeton as well as the said organization’s headquarters.

The Society’s website says admission to the Bainbridge House is only $4 per person, which, I must say, is a small price to shell out to learn about history and culture. When we got there, though, the volunteer usherette told us that admission is free. Seeing that there was a box of cash by the entrance, though, we decided to put in some contribution for the House’s maintenance and future projects.

Currently, the Bainbridge House features a special exhibit called Einstein At Home, which showcases some classic furniture pieces from the Einstein Collection.

Above photo first published at EmotionalCaffeine.com

Through these, as well as the photos and other memorabilia on display, we had the pleasure to observe an important part of the life of this world-class genius as a just another one-time [overachiever] Princeton resident.

The first floor of the Bainbridge House is pretty small, but offers more than enough information to ingest in one afternoon. (Although it could have been the large pieces of furniture that made one room especially crowded). Captions and other notes on each display are worded simply – something a person who tags children along to places like this would greatly appreciate. Captain Awesome and Little HRH found themselves so immersed in the experience. They were observant, inquisitive and, of course, participative, especially in this activity: