2022 New Hampshire Trip Days 3 & 4: Zealand & Franconia Falls

 When we woke up Sunday morning we elected not to eat breakfast at all since neither one of us was hungry. I read out on the balcony for a bit while my husband watched some TV.  After searching for quite some time on both Google and the AllTrails app we settled on hiking to Zealand Falls and the Zealand hut. 

We drove out to Bretton Woods and after finding the parking lot and trail head we headed out often leaving the trail for a bit to enjoy some water views.

(for some reason this whole batch of photos uploaded in reverse so you're actually seeing our last stop at the top of the falls first!)

View of the falls from the side of Zealand Hut

Eating our apples by the side of the waterfall; just before the hut

We had quite a few river/ water crossings; some with bridges and some shallow enough not to need bridges

Our hike took us a couple of hours to complete and we got to back to the car near lunch time.  We decided to head towards Whitefield for some ice cream; a place my husband had remembered passing by when we stayed at the Mountain View Grand last year.  We each got 2 scoops of Mississippi Mud pie ice cream on a cone.  Then we headed back to the hotel.

After showering and changing we spent some time at the room resting; I read on the patio while my husband napped and watched TV, we ate up the last of the snacks we had around the room and decided to go check out the hotel pool.

We stayed until it got cloudy (sometime around 3:30) and spent a decent amount of time in the water too.  Even though it was only a high in the low- mid 70's the pool at Riverwalk is heated so it was still nice.  I did hurt my toe pretty badly though and was limping around the rest of the night!

We ate dinner at the hotel's restaurant La Vista and brought dessert back to the room; splitting a chocolate chip cheesecake and a chocolate mousse dessert.  

It rained overnight and was a bit cloudy Monday morning.  I still put on my sweatshirt and spent part of my morning on the deck.

We headed out to breakfast at Polly's Pancake Parlor and then came back to pack up the room and check out of the hotel.

By morning my toe had turned purple and we knew that if we wanted to get any hiking in we needed a nice flat trail.  We elected to try hiking to Franconia Falls.  It was only an 8 minute drive away and despite being a nearly 7 mile hike it promised to be a fairly flat trail. 

95% of the trail was along an old rail road track so it was very flat and we were always hiking near a river so we could hear water flowing most of the way. 

It took us just over 2 1/2 hours to complete and while my feet were sore after the long hike my toe wasn't hurting much at all so we picked a good trail to end our trip with.

After that we got in the car and headed towards home. 

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