New Haven is the home of Yale University, so New Haven is all about students.
Yale University comprises almost the entire city center. Yale is everywhere, from school buildings, to book shops to dorms to fraternity houses to museums. We visited the Yale University Art Gallery, not a bad collection at all (even if we're used to the MOMA and MET). We also wandered around campus, which we had seen in movies and television shows uncountable times before.
New Haven reminded us of Leuven, the student city of Belgium (before I start a war on "which is best", Ghent is also a really nice city to study but not a student city, there's a difference...). Leuven is of course much older than Yale, but the atmosphere was the same.
And of course, also the food was all about students, meaning pizza's, burgers and Indian food on almost every corner. Some of these places have been around for ages and became very famous (apparently, New Yorkers sometimes drive one hour just to have a pizza here!). We tried the following established restaurants: (You may have noticed that one of my favourite blog topics is food. Well, get used to it... we are what Americans call "foodies" and part of going on a holiday is... well... eating in good restaurants!)
Frank Pepe's Pizzeria (since 1925) - When we arrived at 7 pm, there was a big line waiting. It took us one hour to finally get a seat inside, but the pizza's were so worth the wait! We had a fresh summer tomato pie (incredible!) and a Margherita with pepperoni and mushrooms (very fresh). The pizza's on the picture are the "small" versions... imagine what the "large" are like! 
Although we were stuffed, there is always room for desert. We were recommended to go next door - Libby's Italian Pastry Shop. The outside was fluorescent uncomfortable and the inside was decorated so tacky that normally we would pass it right by. But the gelato was really Italian good and their biscotti heaven. (Now that I think of it, some of the best icecream places in Italy have the same fluorescent tacky interiors, no offence).
The next day, we tried out Louis Lunch, which has been around since 1900. This tiny restaurant only sells burgers, the only choice you have is whether or not you want your burger served with lettuce, cheese, tomato and/or onion. We had to wait forever for our burgers, and they were good, but we were not impressed - New York's Shake Shack is much better! (sorry, don't want to sound like a snob New Yorker)Our last evening we tried something "new": Barcelona... a very modern restaurant serving tapas (with an American twist). This was really delicious, very fine flavors, original dishes and Ward enjoyed the winelist. Probably, also the New Haven nightlife is all about students... but after all the wine (and face it, we are getting older ;-)), only our hotel room seemed attractive at that point.
By now, you must have realized why I came up with the title for this blog entry: heavenly food, heavenly beaches and oh... heavenly quiet, at least compared to New York! :-)
Next trip: Baltimore! Stay tuned!
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