There’s a header image on one of our blog pages depicting our shelf of travel books from a few years ago:
Enticing portals to exotic locales and far away places in normal times!
And now:
Just saw this awesome post on Reddit – totally captures this year for us . . .
As some have observed, this blog maintains a low-grade obsession with cartography and European history. Although this story is a little light on the former, it’s equipped with some decent elements of the latter. Plus, it centers on Bruges, in Flanders, which we totally dug during a Christmas trip in 2015.
The opportunity for exploitation revolves around a charter granted in 1666 by Charles II of England to a bunch of fishermen in Bruges. Here’s a portion of an article in yesterday’s Telegraph that outlines the brilliant scheme:
“Belgium will invoke a 1666 Royal charter granting its fishermen the eternal right to fish British waters if there is a no deal Brexit.
Boris Johnson has threatened to quit negotiations with Brussels if a trade deal is not in sight by the October 15 EU summit. No deal will hit Belgian fisherman hard because they will face being shut out of British waters.
King Charles II granted 50 men of Bruges the right to fish UK waters for “eternity” after staying in the city during his 1656 to 1659 exile after the English Civil War that ended with the execution of his father.
The regional government of Dutch-speaking Flanders said it would use the ancient charter in the courts if necessary.
“Our goal is to reach a negotiated deal,” a spokesperson for Flemish Fisheries Minister Hilde Crevits told Belgian radio.
“But if we don’t reach a deal, we could invoke the charter. It dates back to 1666 but was confirmed by a UK lawyer in 1820.”
EU boats land about eight times more fish in UK waters than British fishermen do in EU waters. Three quarters of the fish sold in the Belgian port of Ostend are caught in British waters.
“One wonders if it is in Belgium’s, or anyone’s interests to start going back to such historic claims. A lot could get put back on the table,” a British source said.
Britain began fishing negotiations with the newly established Kingdom of Belgium in 1849. A treaty was signed but Belgium insisted at the time it was “without prejudice” to the 1666 “fishing privilege”.
The charter was rediscovered in Bruges city archives by alderman Victor Depaepe in 1963, who wrote to Queen Elizabeth pressing the claim.
Mr Depaepe, an accountant and owner of a fishing fleet, contrived to have himself arrested by the Royal Navy fishing off the coast of East Sussex.
British authorities never brought the case to court, which has fueled speculation prosecutors believed the charter could still be legally enforceable.”
Pretty cool, man!
So, one of the planning tools that we didn’t feature in this post on how WolfeStreetTravel plans trips is customizable Google Maps. We bring this up because only because we’re now working on our our third freakin’ map to plan travel over the same Labor Day period, thanks to COVID-19.
We didn’t feature the map on the previous planning post because we hadn’t really used them for planning before – only for tracking completed WolfeStreetTravel destinations on the customized Google Map that’s embedded on the blog’s home (“Map”) page. Customizing Google Maps is useful primarily for road trips in a targeted, but still broad, region, where there is a universe of destination and lodging options that needs to be winnowed down. Visualization of these options in map format with pins applied based on planning research helps to formulate an itinerary.
Unlike the Google map we use to document WolfeStreetTravel destinations on the blog home page, where virtually all destinations are designated by pins that are homogeneous in shape and color, the Google maps we’re using for our now-constantly retreating Labor Day road trip uses uses multiple colors and icons to code the map to designate sources of destination ideas, hotel collections, confirmed stays, and candidate next stops.
We use three monitors for travel planning:
Our plan for the Labor Day period originally was a slow-rolling road trip through the Languedoc region in the South of France, rolling inexorably west, through Cathar country, and ending in San Sebastian, Spain (dropping the rental car back off in Biaritz, France, to avoid ridiculous drop fees that we’d incur if we returned the car in Spain):
Most of the pins designate “The Most Beautiful Villages in France” or similar designations or members of our preferred hotel collections. The primary source of beautiful villages is an officially sanctioned list produced by the French government. “There are 161 villages in France rated as a Plus Beaux Village (as of 2013). The ratings are awarded by the Plus Beaux Villages de France association. The basic requirements to be considered by the association are: population under 2000, at least two village sites or buildings classified as “protected”, and the municipality requests that the village be considered.“ Others originate from regional tourism boards or reasonably referenceable travel blogs that we’ve vetted (there are innumerable shit travel blogs out there). Purple bed pins represent lodging that we had reserved, question marks potential next stops, etc. This trip was 50% done in February when COVID hit; we held out until May, then threw in the towel. Since then, of course, France, as well as the rest of Europe other than Ireland, has declared American travelers persona non grata – understandably so, since the country’s a shitshow with no national strategy.
So, we retrenched. To New England. We’ve wanted to spend time there – and in Maine and Prince Edward Island, in particular. Unfortunately (but reasonably), both Canada and Maine restricted travel from dipshit areas of the US that were out of control, so the northernmost destination targets were now off limits. Based on the laxer travel requirements in other areas in New England, we’d now head north through New York, Rhode Island (we’ve never been), Massachusetts, New Hampshire (we’ve never been), then over to Vermont, down through Pennsylvania, and home. This Google map shows the progress we had made on the backup plan:
But now, New York (our first stop) is (again, understandably) conducting checks on out-of-state travelers on key “key entry points,” to help enforce quarantine requirements. For Rhode Island and New Hampshire, we’d need to quarantine the entire time (which pretty much eliminates the benefit of staying in Newport or Portsmouth, which is where our lodging is located) or produce a negative COVID test taken within 72 hours of entry. Regardless of the challenge with the 72-hour timing (we’d be leaving Virginia more than a week before we hit New Hampshire, for example), there’s no way of knowing when the test results would be available. For Rhode Island, where we’d arrive maybe 68 hours after leaving Virginia, we still may not get a result until after we left for Massachusetts, resulting in quarantining in a cottage the entire time. Not bad digs, since it’s Castle Hill Inn, but not leaving your cottage would get pretty old after the first few hours.
So, starting last Thursday, we’ve had to cancel the four lodging reservations we had in New England, plus a round-trip ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, which does not appear to be (cancellable, after all), and start to plan what we’re optimistically calling the Mid-Atlantic Road Trip:
Based on what’s going on in the country, it’s probably going to wind up simply as the Alexandria circumnavigation-by-bike trip. . .
Alexandria’s history dates back to 1749, and the older, brick buildings in our town, particularly along Union Street, have been repurposed many times over the centuries. This included commercial uses where a little in situ advertising on their walls would have benefited sales of their goods. Although these buildings now generally house restaurants and more tourist-oriented shops, there are faded reminders of their previous lives still visible on their facades – ghost signs.
The most visible is likely this building on the corner of Prince and South Union:
Formerly the home to “ETIMAN FERTILIZER” and “CERES FERTILIZER,” according to the ghost signs on both the south and east facades,
It was for a few decades the home of The Christmas Attic, but that business, too, has gone the way of Ceres Fertilizer, and is no longer there. We’ll see who moves in next.
Just north on an adjacent building is the former home to BYRNE ORGANIZATION:
We have no idea what this is, but would like to think that it was Alexandria’s Irish mob version of the Bada Bing in the Sopranos. Regardless, it’s now the whiskey room portion of Union Street Public House.
Across the street is Virtue Feed & Grain restaurant and bar:
At some point in the past, this was “WALTER ROBERT’S HAY, GRAIN, FLOUR & FEED.” The building also was home to the actual Virtue Feed & Grain store, and we thought there was a ghost sign for this that inspired the restaurant’s name, but it’s not visible now.
A ghost sign that we didn’t even realize was there until recently, despite walking or running by the place hundreds of times, can be found on the corner of Duke and Fairfax:
This was once a corner store, which, prior to the 1960s and the advent of the supermarket, occupied most corners in Old Town (including both ends of our block of Wolfe Street). The last of them – a deli on the corner of Fairfax and Franklin – succumbed to residential conversion about a decade ago.
As with many of the former corner stores, now residences, you can tell that they once served a commercial purpose – this one based on the store windows. The ghost sign can be found between the two windows on the second floor.
“GROCERY SPECIALTIES”
The most recently uncovered is undoubtedly the coolest – the Grape house on the corner of South St. Asaph and Gibbon:
The house was built in 1842, and for our entire residency in Old Town, this wall was painted. However, the house underwent a comprehensive renovation in 2015, including stripping the old paint from this wall, revealing a chewing tobacco advertisement. Wisely, the wall was left exposed. We assume that it actually added a premium to the house price, considering how prominently the Grape tobacco ad was featured in marketing for the house when it was sold.
All of these ghost signs are located in the southeast quadrant. There’s one in the southwest on the top floor of a brick building on King Street:
“Michelbach’s Furniture”
And perhaps a future ghost sign on the side of the new location for Conte’s Bike Shop:
And, lastly, a fake and hokey Oldey Timey sign that the developers of the Watermark condos put up on the Strand:
We have no doubt that this structure (which used to be the sales office for the Potomac River cruise ship The Dandy) was at one time the PHILIP B. HOOE WAREHOUSE for GRAIN, but the oldey timey font is a bit much.
The tables, btw, are overflow outdoor seating for Chadwick’s around the corner (a true Old Town institution). The city has permitted restaurants to spill out into the streets and alleys to accommodate outdoor dining during the current restrictions, which is absolutely awesome. If you haven’t been out to a restaurant since February and are hankering to dine out, come to Old Town!
That’s right – Vanilla Ice knew his Old Town ice houses. There are exactly two ice ice houses in Alexandria, down from dozens across the city at the turn of the 20th century.
Neither are used for storing and selling ice anymore, but this summer, according to Alexandria Living Magazine, a company called Goodie’s Frozen Custard will be moving into the more iconic of Old Town’s two extant ice houses. After 30 years as a plumbing supply shop, and then being abandoned for more than a decade, that ice house will soon host a tenant worthy of the space.
Between 1900 and 1930, ice houses in Alexandria distributed hundreds of thousands of tons of ice annually to the city’s businesses and residents. The increased availability of electricity throughout the city after this period rendered the ice houses obsolete. Most were demo’d to allow the construction of new structures. But two remain standing, albeit used for other purposes.
The more well-known of the two (and the one for which its function is unambiguously broadcast), is located in the southwest quadrant, on the 200 block of Commerce Street (and visible from King):
When one of us was growing up, that ice house was abandoned, and painted a uniform, faded light blue. The “ICE” was visible only as relief on the facade. (BTW, we continue to look for a serigraph of the ice house in this condition by late, local Torpedo Factory artist Clay Huffman, but the search has been fruitless.) About 5 years ago, someone bought ICE house, began restoring it, and applied the new, improved paint scheme. This is the future home of the frozen custard purveyor, fittingly enough.
The other remaining ice house structure lies on the 100 block of South Lee Street:
We run or walk by this place multiple times a week, and only recently realized that it was an ice house. This was the home of the Mutual Ice Company from 1900 to 1937, when it closed due to widespread adoption of electricity for refrigerators and freezers. It’s now home to an architectural firm.
As with the first “ICE” house, the structure on Lee features a shelf on which to place ice blocks during a transaction:
And a pretty impressive, heavy wood insulated door to the ice freezer:
These more recent ice houses have nothing on the grand daddy of them all in Old Town, though – the 18th-century Gatsby’s Tavern ice well. (All of the quoted information below is verbatim from the city’s historical information site here.)
“The Alexandria Common Council granted Wise permission to build an icehouse underneath the corner of Royal and Cameron Streets in 1793 as part of his construction. For the previous four years, Wise had leased the Alexandria Inn and Coffee House at 201 N. Fairfax Street, which included an on-site icehouse. Perhaps this convenience in his earlier ventures convinced Wise of the importance to the hospitality industry of having a regular supply of ice. Wise saw into the future by including this important feature in his designs for Alexandria’s five-star hotel of the 18th century.”
Inscription on the bluestone at the center of the circle on the corner above:
“Ice harvesting was an expensive and time-consuming process. It was cut from the frozen Potomac River in the winter and hauled by cart to the City Tavern for storage. Once in the well, the ice was formed into a solid mound and covered with straw to preserve it for use through the summer months. Preserving ice was an on-going challenge in the late 18th century and an expensive venture. Therefore, ice was generally reserved for wealthy estate owners. George Washington records in his journals the trials and tribulations of trying to preserve ice. In Alexandria, many homes had interior ice pits to store small quantities of ice. Those lucky enough to have access to ice used it to chill beverages, preserve perishable foods, and even make a new popular dessert of the day: ice cream. This availability of ice at Gadsby’s Tavern helped to distinguish the establishment as one of the finest of its kind in the 18th century.”
Linked directly to the Tavern basement by a brick-walled and vaulted tunnel, the ice well was also accessed by the tavern staff through a small hatch at street level. The City Tavern’s well is much larger than most urban residential ice wells, measuring over 17 feet in diameter and over 11 feet deep at the lowest excavation point. The well could store as much as 68 tons of ice, enough to supply the tavern and even the citizens of Alexandria. In 1805, when John Gadsby was leasing the tavern from John Wise, Gadsby advertised the sale of ice from the well, “ICE FOR SALE, Persons may be supplied with ice, at eight cents per pound on application to John Gadsby.”
A view into the ice well:
“The ice well is an important and rare example of a commercial well in an urban environment. Most ice wells have been lost to “progress” as they have succumbed to office buildings, parking lots, and housing. Examples still exist at Monticello, Montpelier, and Mount Vernon, but these were created for private and not commercial use. Gadsby’s ice well tells the larger story of commerce and the evolution of hospitality. It is a reminder to modern day travelers and residents of something we take for granted today – a ready supply of ice.”
Stay cool, Old Town.
A Saturday morning quiz: spot the difference between these two pictures
We took the picture on the top a few weeks ago; we took the one on the bottom this past Tuesday.
In light of the ongoing protests throughout the country, the city worked with the United Daughters of the Confederacy on Tuesday morning to remove the Appomattox statue from its plinth at the intersection of Washington and Prince Streets. The city had voted several years ago to remove the statue, but were prevented from acting on this by a state law that reserved decisions on Confederate war memorials at the state level. The new legislature that was voted into Richmond during last year’s mid-term elections reversed this policy, enabling municipalities to take the actions they saw fit. In the case of Appomattox, this required working with the monument’s owner, since the statue and plinth are not owned by the city. (The circular patch in the intersection also may be owned by the UDC – we’ve heard this, but haven’t been able to verify it. The city’s GIS parcel viewer does show a little circle at this intersection, while there is none in the other intersections, but there’s not a parcel designation for the circle.)
We previously posted on Alexandria’s Appomattox monument in 2017 after the white supremacist jackassery in Charlottesville.
From this article in the Alexandria Gazette: “Although City Council voted unanimously in 2016 to move the statue to another location, prevailing law at the time required approval from the General Assembly for the relocation of the Appomattox Statue along with other war memorials throughout the state. A bill passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) earlier this year removed those protections, giving authority over memorials to local jurisdictions. That law goes into effect July 1. ‘We had already coordinated with the UDC and scheduled a date for removal in July,” [Alexandria City Mayor] Wilson said. “They approached the city last night with a request to remove the statue early. That is probably a testament to the moment we are in right now.'”
A closer look:
There was earlier consideration to move Appomattox to the city’s Lyceum museum located on the southwest corner. That no longer appears to be the case and it’s unclear where the statue (and plinth, we assume) will be relocated.
A plaque addressing Appomattox near the Lyceum:
Adieu, Appomattox.
We’re about to head out to countries 60 – 64: Qatar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Considering the number of countries and locations on this trip, we’ve been asked multiple times whether we used an adventure travel firm to plan this.
Hell no.
One of the great joys in life is navigating the variables associated with international travel, and bringing order – and a fulfilling itinerary – out of the chaos of infinite options and decision paralysis. For one of us, life exists in an X and Y axis. All information and variables can be accommodated, analyzed, sorted, filtered, and ultimately presented on such a grid.
Specifically, in a spreadsheet.
WolfeStreetTravel runs on Excel.
Logistically, our Christmas Southeast Asia trip (because who doesn’t think of Christmas when one thinks of Cambodia?), has been a complex planning process. But because we’re getting from one place to another by plane, this hasn’t been nearly as much as a challenge as when we’re dealing with trains, planes, automobiles, AND ferries that don’t run every day, as was the case (with the exception of trains) for our foray into Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro more than a dozen years ago.
So, for our Southeast Asia trip, the itinerary has (mostly) been refined and looks like this, in the world of X and Y axes:
Red is travel time, green free time, and blue represents engagements. The yellow layover is a yet to be addressed long – but not really long – layover in Bangkok on the way back.
There’s another tab (two actually – one for planning and one for packing) that contains matrices of hotel choices, activities options, URLs to travel articles, and screenshots of (mostly) flight options and maps. One table, though, really exemplifies our planning for this trip – which locations were served by nonstop flights, versus connections, which dictated where we’d go and the sequence in which we would travel:
Greens are acceptable options, yellow are candidates (but not great), and red are unacceptable. Blue is a critical path item (the only real option if we were to include Ho Chi MInh city with the other locations we had prioritized). NS is nonstop, 1S is one stop, and the numbers are the total flight duration. We determined candidate locations to visit based on travel articles and blogs, but based our final trip on the data in this table.
Previous examples include the only travel agent-planned trip last year in Southern Africa (much simpler, as a result):
And our legendary MicroNations road trip in 2017, where travel time was everything:
Hopefully, our upcoming trip will work out as planned, but now you know how it looks before we leave!
Our friend Bill last night forwarded an article on a micronation previously unknown to us that we totally could have visited during our Tiniest 5 for the Big 5-0 trip in 2017. During that trip, we drove to all five European continental micronations – Vatican City, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Andorra.
We totally missed the Principality of Seborga!
The micronation (merely self-proclaimed, to be sure) is enclaved within Italy, just like San Marino:
Seborga’s claim that their principality is an independent nation and not a part of Italy is based on a sale document that was never fully executed in 1729:
“Allegedly on 20 January 1729, this independent principality was sold to the Savoy dynasty and became a protectorate of theirs. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna overlooked Seborga in its redistribution of European territories after the Napoleonic Wars, and there is no mention of Seborga in the Act of Unification for the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. . . The argument for Seborga’s present-day status as an independent state is based on the claim that the 1729 sale was never registered by its new owners, resulting in the principality falling into what has been described as a legal twilight zone.”
The principality is not recognized diplomatically, and so does not meet one of the actual micronation definition. However, Seborga does indulge in micronation practices, such as producing their own currency, that we’ve seen in other self-proclaimed tiny countries, like the Republic of Vevčani in North Macedonia, where we began our third day of riding during our Biking the Balkans trip earlier this year.
The micronation also is located in the extreme west of Italy, just ~12 miles from Monaco, so we totally could have visited Seborga in 2017 . . .
A fuller history and an absolutely entertaining read on the Principality of Seborga (and the reigning prince) can be found here, on Vice.
Thanks, Bill, for the great story – we’ll try to drop by the principality the next time we’re in the area!
We’re still sorting through photos from Morocco, so in the meantime, a quick post closer to home about some nearby history hidden in plain sight.
Within the parking garage at Reagan National Airport just north of Old Town there lies the ruins of a colonial-era plantation connected to George Washington. The ruins are completely enveloped by the parking garage structure, but you can tell where the plantation ruins are as you’re driving by on the parkway by the looking for the trees that appear to grow out of the parking garage roof.
After seeing this for years, and as consummate history dorks, we checked it out.
Abingdon Plantation ruins’ green space within the garage from in a satellite view on Google Maps:
There are a few signs in the Reagan National Airport parking garage leading to the ruins of Abingdon plantation. However, considering that most people parking there need to catch a flight and don’t have time to wander around to see the landmark, we’re no sure how often the spot actually gets visitors.
However, since National Airport is a short bike ride away for us, we rode there on the way to a longer ride up the Capital Crescent Trail to Bethesda for lunch. There’s actually biking infrastructure involving a few paths, a tunnel, and the parking garage that connects National Airport to the Mt. Vernon bike trail next to the parkway. (We have a friend around the corner who used to tow one of his kids in a Burley and bike from Old Town to the National Airport terminal for lunch at Legal Seafoods, which is located outside security. Go figure.)
The first helpful sign in the ground level of the garage near the bike entrance:
Directions to the plantation ruins in the breezeway between the terminal and parking garage:
Entrance sign to the plantation ruins; Parking Garage B is to the right:
The ruins are just up a path:
Remains of the main house with the airport terminal in the background:
Context of the ruins within the airport from signage at the site:
Remains of the kitchen building with Parking Garage C behind it:
Lots o’ signage at the top of the mound, overlooking both the ruins and the terminal:
Layout of the ruins:
Pretty well done historical markers providing the history of the place:
Instead of trying to read the signs, here’s an easier approach – this article on Atlas Obscura (which is an absolutely phenomenal site, btw):
“Abingdon was built in 1695 by the Alexander family, whose name was later conveyed to the nearby port town that we know today as Alexandria. Years later, George Washington’s adopted stepson, John, purchased the house so that he could live closer to the Washingtons’ home at Mount Vernon.
The property later reverted to the Alexander descendants, named Hunter, up until the Civil War when the confederate sympathizers fled south. Like the nearby Custis Lee Mansion (today, Arlington National Cemetery), Union troops took the property over and made camp on the lawns. After the war, the Hunters returned and successfully sued the government for rights to Abingdon. The lawyer, incidentally, was James Garfield, the future president of the United States.”
“The mansion itself burned down under suspicious circumstances in 1930. It was possibly an act of arson—the RF&P Railroad wanted to build on the site, and had previously “invited employees to strip the house” in order to “save demolition costs,” according to the Washington Post.
The ruins of Abingdon then sat abandoned for 11 years until Washington National Airport was built on landfill just north of the site. The airport’s continued expansion over the years again threatened Abingdon. In 1990, the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority proposed bulldozing the fenced-off site to make way for a new parking garage. A vigorous preservation campaign played out in the city’s newspapers, and the ruins of Abingdon reopened in 1998 as a little park.”
The George Washington connection: Abingdon is the birthplace of Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis Lewis, Martha Washington’s granddaughter:
Mount Vernon is located just south of us, right down the aptly named George Washington Parkway. Visitors to Mount Vernon pass through the main entrance, beyond which – and out of sight – lie the mansion, out buildings, and gardens.
There’s a great 30-mile-loop bike ride from Old Town we frequently use that passes by Mount Vernon as the route continues to the turnaround point in Yacht Haven, so we encounter the estate’s entrance several times a month.
However, the ride also passes by a different portal into the estate that tourists have no idea even exists: the overlooked West Gate.
Mount Vernon’s West Gate is located at the opposite end of the estate and off the parkway itself. The Google Earth image below shows the main entrance to Mount Vernon on the right (at the base of the roundabout) and the West Gate indicated by the red dot on the left.
The gate lies along an unassuming stretch of the appropriately monikered Old Mount Vernon Road at its intersection with Old Mill Road:
The trajectory of Old Mill Road would continue straight through to the mansion, if not for the gate:
Beyond which lies Mount Vernon itself,
From the mountvernon.org site regarding traveling to Mount Vernon when George and Martha still occupied the estate: “Since the wharf on the Potomac River was reserved almost exclusively for deliveries, most of George Washington’s visitors arrived overland, on roads and paths that meandered past the fields and pastures surrounding the Mansion Farm House. Washington places a premium on first impressions. Visitors first sighted the Mansion from what is now known as the west gate. From there, they were afforded a “visto”, or view, of the west face of the Mansion, in front of which were cleared land and rolling hills for about seven-tenths of a mile.”
This 18th-century “visto” still exists, under the radar, and unknown to the tourists piling out of buses and filing into the main entrance:
Brief information on the West Gate right inside the barrier:
Definitely worth a look the next time you’re riding (or driving) near Mount Vernon:
WolfeStreetTravel 