Annapolis

Where we are currently enjoying a bit of post-Colonial luxury in the Annapolitan Bed & Breakfast:

Annapolis is a bit of a joke – the US equivalent of Chipping Norton or Bourton-on-the-Water, stuffed with trendy shops and people and overrated eating-places.  We drove round and round it looking for a budget hotel, with which most US cities are well-supplied, usually on the way in from the Interstate – but not Annapolis.  You might as well look for a budget hotel in, well, Chipping Norton or Bourton-on-the-Water.  We were on our way out of town, having given up and heading for the bridge over to the Eastern Shore, when we passed this place and were welcomed into its luxurious embrace.  After a bit of a smarten-up, we wandered downtown and hopped onto one of the free trolleys (actually modern buses done up to look like old trams) for a tour that took us through the downtown harbour quarter and past the famous historical buildings (oldest State Capitol in the US, etc.).  No photographs as it was getting dark – much earlier here in the east than down in North Carolina, where the distance south was more than compensated for by the distance west, and night didn’t really fall until 9.30.

Before that, the day had been one of more driving, from Charlottesville through a region riddled with famous Civil War sites – Spotsylvania, Chancellorsville – to Fredericksburg and a visit to the battleground and visitor centre.  For Civil War enthusiasts (hello?…. hello?) here are a few of the key sites in this terrible encounter:

The Sunken Road – Union attack from the right, Confeds in the shelter of the wall shooting them like fish in a barrel

Marye’s Heights, the Confederate position, with Fredericksburg in the distance

The National Cemetery

The rest of the journey was through flat eastern Virginian countryside and over the Potomac Bridge into Maryland.  For whatever good reason, this one lets shipping through not by dipping into a tunnel but by the up-and-over route:

This part of Maryland, 30 miles or so from Washington, is fairly unattractive and also very busy – the heaviest traffic we’d driven through.  And why is fuel so expensive here? (OK, you poor Brits, that’s relative.)  It seems perverse that in rural western Virginia we paid $3.25 a gallon, while within a few miles of the national capital it’s $3.60 or so.

Must put in a word, though, about the courtesy of American drivers – not once have I had a horn blown at me; of course I’m a supremely excellent driver, but it’s taken me a little while to get used to some key differences from our rules of the road, such as that you are allowed unless expressly forbidden to turn right through a red light if there’s nothing coming from the left.

And speaking of driving, our old faithful car will be leaving us tomorrow 😦 – not one I would choose for everyday motoring at home, but it’s been very comfortable and easy to drive.