the scenic route to old town alexandria | 1

I've been romanticizing Old Town Alexandria. There are all sorts of historical tours, Robert E. Lee's childhood home is there, and I envisioned it would be rustic, charming, and a veritable time machine to another era in the region's past. I was sorely disappointed when I realized it's a mirror image of Georgetown, complete with the same retail-therapy lined main streets and converted old buildings into restaurants and pubs (with a few vague ghost stories attached). Although it wasn't quite what I hoped for, I did still marvel at the stunning rowhouses and quaint tree-lined backstreets.

But the best part of Alexandria, by far, was the journey out there. Zan and I have been talking about cycling out there for a while. A few weekends ago, we pushed ourselves out of bed a little earlier than normal on a Saturday morning, grabbed some coffee (him) and tea (me) and started cycling. Round trip, it's about 26 miles, and every inch of it is beautiful. From Cleveland Park, we took trails in Rock Creek Park down to the edge of the mall by the Lincoln Memorial, After crossing over Arlington Bridge, we navigated onto the Mt. Vernon trail and rode that all the way into Alexandria. 

We saw the last remnants of glorious fall foliage, made a pit stop at Gravelly Point Park to watch planes take off from Washington-National airport, and crossed over a rickety wooden bridge that made me swoon. Wisps of cottontails greeted us. Drifting leaves lazily floated by us as we rode. A swampy area with reeds and woods and birds singing a final fall song called for me to pause to take it all in. 

And as hard of a time as I'm giving Alexandria, I loved spending time in the Spice and Tea Exchange, where I nearly bought them out of spices and teas. And we enjoyed hot apple cider from a local coffeeshop we found tucked away on a backstreet. We devoured lunch in a converted historic building, and we lit up walking down the sidewalks already ablaze with twinkling holiday lights and music. 

I used to be such a fast traveler - packing in as much as possible in the short time I had. These days, I savor slowness, reaching a new city on bike or foot, seeing every detail in high definition that's usually a blur by car.