Old Town Alexandria, here comes the fun
sun dial from the Carlyle House
So after years of trying to get Nancy to travel the short distance to Old Town Alexandria for a day of fun it finally happened. But not because of my doing, a couple she knows was going to the Torpedo Factory, one of the reasons I have been trying to get her to go, and invited us along. I couldn’t believe it when she agreed to travel to the “city”. Finally! We were headed to the Torpedo Factory for a day of culture and fun.
Saturday when we went couldn’t have been better to be outside in this historic district. The sun was shining and them temperatures were very comfortable. I decided to take Metro and just meet everyone there at 4 o’clock. Since i wanted to walk around a take a bunch of pictures this afforded me ample time to get there early and enjoy the city. While walking down from the Metro stop they had an Armenian festival at City Hall. They had all sorts of craft vendors and when I was passing through a group of dancers were on stage doing traditional dance, you wont see this stuff on MTV.
I was able to spend a good hour walking around the city, mostly along the waterfront, and got some good shots. Nancy and the troops were running a little late which allowed me the extra shooting time at the Carlyle House (picture). A historic site with a fantastic garden in the back yard that is being restored. Unfortunately their delay would limit our time at the Torpedo Factory. It normally closes at 6 on Saturdays, but tonight they had a special engagement and were closing at 5. So we only had about 30 minutes of time to walk around. Every type of art medium you could think of is represented here, most of which was for sale. I was really impressed with the place and would love to come back when I can spend a few hours walking around. With three levels and all these little cubbyholes hiding different artists, many of who are happy to talk about their work, there is a lot to see.
Eventually when we got kicked out we walked around downtown and did a little shopping. The first place we went to was Conrad’s Furniture Gallery because of their pitch. When we walked by they offered us free drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Who can refuse free alcohol and food? The place was very trendy and offered a wide variety of things for sale. Nancy walked away with a hand blown green glass blow from Turkey, or maybe Morocco. I wanted to use it as a cereal bowl but that idea got shot down quickly. Nancy doesn’t know yet what she will do with it, but she knows it will be the bases for furnishing her house. I fail to see how you can base the whole decoration of a house, or even a room, on one single bowl, but if anyone can do it it would be Nancy.
row houses
We still needed to kill time as our dinner reservations at The Wharf, was not till 6:30. The hors d’oeuvres wet our appetite so we tried to get seated early for our reservations. When we arrived at the restaurant it was completely empty on Saturday night. Once we got seated we checked out the menu and it was limited and expensive. Plus Nancy doesn’t eat seafood and the selection of chicken/beef was only two items. So we decided to dine and dash, well more just the dash. We didn’t order anything, not even drinks.
Fortunately for us just down the block we found another restaurant that looked more appealing, the Fish Market. It was still a seafood place, but the menu had more options of non-seafood items. When we walked in the atmosphere was much more relaxed compared to the other place. Even the drink selection was better, the crazy sizes and names made it a done deal. I must saw that I was impressed with the food as well. I had the Admiral’s platter, basically a little of everything. With the exception of the crab imperial that tasted awful, everything was good. And the hushpuppies, it had been so long since I tasted such good hushpuppies.
After dinner we decided on some bar hoping and this is how we ended our night in Old Town. Our first stop was at the Tap Room which was right next to the car. Definitely a locals bar, very quaint with cool architecture. Next it was off to O’Connell’s, you might have quested it, an Irish pub. Here we lucked out and got a table outside on the sidewalk. On such a beautiful night we could not have asked for a better location. Plus I love to people watch and it was great to see the diverse crowd of people walking around that evening. It was so good we had two rounds of drinks before we did a little shopping at Le Tache. I won’t go into what this place is, but I saved the night when I found it only one block up from O’Connell’s bar. A very interesting place, very upscale with a helpful staff, I can’t wait to go back.
For a night cap it was Bugsy’s and their sports bar located atop their pizza parlor. I was amazed by the amount of crap, I mean memorabilia, on the walls. In the middle of looking around we noticed it was almost midnight and that the garage would be closing soon. We were not ready to finish our evening, but we were forced to leave. After getting back to the car I hitched a ride to Metro and that ended a great day in Old Town Alexandria. We are all hoping to get back soon and do an official bar crawl.
