I had my first “real” trip since March 2020. I’m not counting trips to the Jersey shore. My friend Denise purchased a beach house in Onanock,Virginia on the Eastern Shore. Onancock is a quaint, adorable town, where everyone is friendly. Founded in 1680, as one of the 12 original it’s a deep water port, and access to the Chesapeake Bay. After getting settled, we decided to have dinner at Mallards on the wharf. It’s a lovely spot to see boats sail in and out, catch sight of a blue heron, while watching a breathtaking sunset. Our crab cakes were delicious, but catching up with an old friend made it priceless. Driving home from the wharf we saw the beauty of the town the churches, restaurants, downtown, and the old Victorian homes.
On Saturday after eating breakfast at the Sage Diner, we drove down to Cape Charles, located on the southern end of Virginia’s Eastern Shore on the Chesapeake Bay side of the peninsula. Cape Charles is one of America’s coziest little beach towns. The beautiful historic homes were built between 1885 in 1920. Inspired by late Victorian architecture, they are reminiscent of painted ladies in San Francisco. I saw a house I want to buy, for a low price of $630,000. When entering the town, there’s a water tower shaped like a Lighthouse, but we didn’t see an actual lighthouse.
We saw several bed & breakfast inns, and rental properties, which would make staying here a pleasure. With eateries close by, including a chic coffee house, an old fashion soda fountain in the neighborhood pharmacy and a restaurant in a restored plantation house. We strolled along Mason Street to window shop, buy a few nicknacks, sit on a bench and people watch. It was quite hot, so store air conditioning was a lifesaver.
Virginia is known as the oyster capital of the East Coast and the Eastern Shore leads the way in oyster production. There are eight distinct oyster regions throughout the state and four of them are on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Now, most of the oysters that you’ll find on menus across the commonwealth are aqua-farmed. Oysters are spawned in tanks of saltwater in a lab and, when they are big enough, they’re transferred into cages that are suspended in the shallow waters of the Chesapeake Bay or Atlantic ocean to finish growing. This new way of cultivating oysters is helping to keep our waters clean and bellies full! I say all that, neither Denise or I love oysters, so we didn’t have any, but learning about them made me want to try one the next time I’m in town. Maybe cooked. Instead we were craving seafood, so for dinner we went to the Main Street Grille across the street from their house to have a lovely dinner of crabs, shrimp and prime rib.
We had a slow start on Sunday, had breakfast at the house and then packed up for head home. We decided on the way to stop at a fried fish restaurant for lunch called Metompkin Seafood. This is a real deal seafood spot on route 13. Fish, crabs, scallops, shrimp, crabcakes, oysters make up most of the menu. Everything is lightly fried and taste amazing.
Traveljunkies 