Old Town Alexandria

 

We are back from our trip to Washington DC and we learned a couple of thing while we were there.  

Number 1:  August is NOT the best month to travel to our nation’s capitol.  The heat.  My God the heat!! 

Number 2:  Don’t mess around with back pain.  But more about that later.

The entire time we were there the heat index was over 100 degrees and the air was thick with humidity!  There is a lot of walking to do when you are in DC.  We took the Metro to get ourselves around town and then did some mega amounts of walking which would normally be no problem and actually welcome as a great form of exercise.  BUT not when its over a hundred degrees.  But we are troopers and we made the best of it.  We stayed right on King Street at the Hotel Monaco in Old Town Alexandria and it really was a perfect location.  Right in the middle of everything and easy access to a Trolley that took us to the King Street Metro Station which allowed us to get anywhere we wanted to go. 

Old Town Alexandria is historic and  incredibly quaint with it’s brick sidewalks, shops and restaurants.  Our hotel was only a couple of blocks from this marina on the Potomac River in an area call the Torpedo Factory Art Center where artists work and show and sell their pieces of art. You can visit 82 artists' studios, six galleries, two workshops, and the Alexandria Archaeology Museum.  And you can sign up for an art class with The Art League School.

Scenic boat tour of the Potomac are available here too.  We toyed with the idea of taking a star lit river boat cruise and the idea of taking the water taxi to see the Washington Nationals play baseball.  The lack of time and the heat factor led us to say No to both these ideas but maybe next time!

There are also restaurants here too.  Dine while looking out over the harbor.

   

We came across this guy who was playing patriotic songs like God Bless American by swirling his fingers around the top of glasses filled with various amounts of water.  It sounded beautiful. He was amazing. 

We strolled up and down the street several times a day having to make the difficult decision of where to eat and shop.  And all this strolling leads me to the second thing we learned on our trip and that was to not mess around with back pain.  My poor husband went to great lengths so that we could take this trip together.  I think he crammed in a little too much yard work the weekend before we left and when you combine that with a 5 hour drive in a car with the world’s most uncomfortable seats and mega amounts of walking…..let’s just say he was incredibly uncomfortable and we cut our trip short.  Immediately went to a Chiropractor when we got home and he is mending but ever so slowly. 

Anyway, like I said we made the best of the short time we were there and I’ll have more to post about it throughout the week.  Tomorrow I should have the photos of our hotel.  It was decorated so nicely.    We are happy to back!