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Old Town Alexandria we can’t wait to come back.  We went up to visit Mary and she gave us a very custom tour of Old Town Alexandria.  We started out from her apartment and passed many historic townhomes before reaching our first destination.  We were especially charmed by the occasional cobblestone street and peeks of the waterfront.

We voted this to be the best Farmer’s Market to which we’ve ever been – which is saying a lot.  The produce was fresh and varied, the people watching fun, and we found a piece of art (signed numbered print) that captured the magic of Alexandria so well that we just up and bought it.  (However, that turned out not to be the biggest purchase of the day.)  The original was a painting done as a wedding present.  It placed various restaurants and locales around Alexandria all on the same street.  Each spot had a special meaning to the wedding couple.  For example, Eve’s restaurant in the foreground was where they had their first date.

Next we went to Madeleine’s for a tasty breakfast and coffee at a sidewalk table.  Good food and the entertainment of watching people walk a wide variety of dogs past our station.  Back to the apartment to tend our dogs.

We opted out of going to the boat show, which had been our original reason for going this specific weekend.  (Mary being the real reason for going.)  I found on the internet that a local boat dealer had the pontoon boat we were shopping for and that it was a heavily discounted left over.  So we popped over there.  Okay, ‘popped’ isn’t the right word.  We sat in traffic to there.  We saw.  We liked.  We bought.  Then we sat in traffic back to Mary’s.

After dog duties and a nap, we set out for the Chart House Restaurant.  Tommy joined us (having finished his workday).  We enjoyed a great view of a wedding party having a reception on a paddle-wheel boat and the local water taxi exchanging passengers.  Joy says the food was excellent.  No longer living on the left coast near Emilio, she was quite happy to make do with Chart House shrimp and crab cakes.  I thought my Cajun rockfish was seasoned to perfection.  Tommy and Mary were also to be counted in the satisfied customer category.

We then strolled around Old Town fantasy house shopping.  “Look at the way the upstairs window base tapers between the arches of the downstairs windows.”  “I like that this one has a garage.”  “Oooh, cool courtyard.”  By the time we got back to the awesome guest apartment Mary reserved for us, we were truly done.

Old Town will definitely be on the short list for our retirement plans.  It has now supplanted Annapolis as our favorite Mid-Atlantic city.