The new world

Of an evening we will peruse the Michelin road atlas of North America to see where we can go next. We'll also have a flick through the thick Lonely Planet guide book for inspiration. In the West of the U.S.A there's an abundance of things to see day after but in the East things of amazement are fewer and farther between. With this in mind we continue southward toward some of the early European settlements that started the United States of America.


We pass through a couple of quaint towns, Fredricksburg, Virginia is one that comes to mind. These places at least look pretty enough, although it all seems a bit new and film set-ish and commonly deserted.
The state of Virginia is famous for it's tobacco plantations and at the time of independence was the richest of all the American colonies. George Washington, America's first president and general of the victorious army fighting the Brits, was a wealthy land owner from Virginia so you could say the roots of the U.S.A started to grow from this state.
We haven't travelled far but things around us have changed somewhat. The roads are flanked by
thick vegetation and the temperature has shot up. It's a weird thing to know that only a couple of days ago we were soaked and cold in Washington D.C. to now getting out of the car with a t-shirt on.
We arrive in Williamsburg at a cheap motel with an outdoor pool and holiday makers sunning themselves. Williamsburg is a year round destination, and not due to the weather. The attraction is Colonial Williamsburg which is a reconstructed settlement on the site of one of the early American colonies. Thousands flock to this town of white picket fences and well dressed colonial properties to get a taste of the life that the early settlers had.

Colonial Williamsburg is connected to two other nearby settlements, Yorktown and Jamestown, that also have some reconstructed buildings and plenty of information about early life here, including the Native Americans that inhabited the place originally. We decide to visit all three just because we can.
We stroll along a bridge from the car park to a large visitors centre that has prices up for various tickets of entry. I remembered reading a Bill Bryson book about this place so I was pretty confident that you didn't actually have to pay to have a look round, they just make it seem like you do. It turns out to be free but the limitations to that are missing out on seeing some re-enactments and entrance to some buildings. Oh, and you don't get to ride on the bus that takes you the 500 yards from the visitor's centre to the town itself. Big deal. I think for £25 a ticket I'll be quite happy with just having a nosey around.



The main street is a pleasant dusty road with pristine buildings dotted along either side. At one end of the village is a paved area of shops for people to fulfil their need of entering a shop every time they leave the house.
Everything is about the revolution here and the 'tyrannical' British rule. Seriously, if they thought we were tyrants I'd hate to imagine what they'd thought if the Russians or Chinese had control in those days.
For all it's fakeness and 'too clean' appearance I can't help but like it around here. The sun is blazing, lush green foliage and picture perfect houses and grounds are around every corner. It's not really somewhere you'd want to live but it's a pleasant place to visit.


We leave the period costumed Americans on horseback or at the reigns of a horse drawn carriage to visit nearby Yorktown for tea. We cook pasta, like the poverty stricken travellers we are, by the water looking over at a decent bridge as the sun goes down.

Yorktown is basically just a short street with a few colonial properties but it does have more of a traditional British feel than Williamsburg. The real visiting spot here is all the battlefields around town that you can visit but for me they all look achingly dull.
Next morning we drive the connecting road of these three towns, the Colonial Parkway, to visit Jamestown. Later that evening we read about the Colonial Parkway murderer who had been killing unsuspecting couples along this uninterrupted route and still was yet to be caught, ah well.
I was expecting a town in Jamestown but non such thing exists. Just foundations and a chapel remain and a load of information about the early settlers. This was in fact the first successful British settlement on the continent. Town decisions were being made here a year before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. So Plymouth not only wasn't the first settlement it wasn't the first landing point either so how it gained fame I've no idea.
Jamestown ended in failure eventually anyway. A couple of fires ravaged the settlement and those who didn't starve to death through lack of farming knowledge managed to move on. The local natives helped out the settlers and showed what was mainly a clerical population how to grow crops and when and where to plant. This help from the natives is where the American holiday of Thanksgiving comes from after the celebration of a successful harvest. Once the natives had helped the settlers and they could survive without assistance they killed or ran out the Native Americans. Yeehaw!


This settlement by the river eventually became another tobacco plantation after it burned for the last time. It's a humid place and I get the feeling that it's only going to get hotter for the final month of our trip.

State 1

Washington D.C. is a small area which therefore also means it's hemmed in by neighbouring states on all sides. We passed briefly through Maryland to get there and over a bridge and we're in Virginia to then cross another bridge to arrive in the state of Delaware. Not the most well known of states but it's car reg plates tell us that it was the first state to be inaugurated into the United States. Things haven't improved on that fact since though. The street scene was pass through is of ramshackle wooden housing and raggedly dressed locals. Delaware, well the Delaware river, is where the defining battle against the British took place, which is probably why it was the first state. It is also the only state in the U.S.A not to have a national park. However, like most other states they have state parks. These are solely run by the state and exist without government funding. The downside to this is that any patch of land that is a park in the U.S.A. that is not national park land is state park land. This wouldn't be a problem but you always have to pay to enter and you end up paying double national park prices for camping.
As the rain was left behind in Washington we decide to try out a state park and camp. At $32, £16 at the time, it wasn't cheap. In fact, we stopped in a Vegas casino for less! Unfortunately for us it's a Saturday. Weekends are sometimes a pain when you're travelling as you quickly get used to most places being deserted. A busy campsite in America is not a quiet place, and not because Americans are having such a crazy time, no, it's they're just unnecessarily loud at all times of the night not caring about anybody else but themselves. Still, it's good to get out and camp again and the woodland pitch is nice enough. The sea is only round the corner and the next morning we take a short stroll in bracing wind along the beach alongside surf fishermen. An old-ish guy spots our Washington state reg plate and asks if I'm in the Air Force, I'm not sure why. I tell him we're from England, "How d'ya like us?", he asks. "Alright, not bad." I reply and he just walks off. I forgot I was supposed to act over the top but it's just beyond me.
From here we head back into Virginia after fairly unremarkable Delaware. After visiting Washington D.C. I was struggling to think of what else there is left to see. All the major cities and parks on the East coast have been visited and between here and Florida, where we fly home, there's nothing that stands out to me. Do I want to find out more about the American revolution and early settler's life? Not particularly, at this point I've heard far too much about American life to care. But, as we're not doing anything else!

A day with Washington

From the state of Pennsylvania we enter the odd arrangement of Washington D.C. It's not really a state, the D.C. stands for District of Columbia, and it is tiny. You could drive through the area in half an hour to one of four surrounding states. The car registration plates read 'Taxation without representation' which refers to the former British taxes imposed on the American colonies for which they had no representation in British parliament.
The capital of the U.S.A. has another couple of oddities that we haven't come across anywhere else. For one, the museums here are free. This is good news for the tourist as there's plenty of museums here relating to the history of America and huge collections of items that were gathered by the government funded Smithsonian Institute.
The rain has increased to a constant downpour and the streets are filling with deep water. We drive from our expensive but very dire motel, that feels like it's probably seen numerous murders, into the centre. The night draws in as we catch glimpses of the White House, the Capitol Building, the Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.
I'd heard a few things about D.C. but the main thing that stuck in my mind was that it was once known as the 'Murder Capitol' as it was just behind New Orleans in yearly murders with nearly five hundred in one year during the early nineties. We even read an article about the Governor of D.C. boasting about the district's tough reputation for murder and violence claiming 'If you can't stand the heat then get out of Washington'. Further boasts about D.C. being the 'top dog' when it comes to being a tough city made the guy sound like a complete knucklehead. Imagine if Gordon Brown had come out and said something like that!?
But for all the hype Washington D.C. seems a very decent place around the centre. Grand Greek style architecture is everywhere and large parts of the centre are lush green park land. Splitting swathes of green are wide boulevards from which you can see the various monuments to former figures of the U.S.A. We cross grand bridges that seem to echo London, but without the people, and make our way eventually to our motel. We can only afford to stay here one night as it's more expensive than New York so we make the most of the next day.
Unfortunately the rain hasn't stopped. We start out at the large Lincoln Memorial which is a huge seated statue of the famous man within a Greek columned round building. His famous Gettysburg address speech is etched inside the high ceilings. A bit of information about the civil war and the racist split of America at that time is read by us and a good number of tourists braving the weather. In fact, it seems every one's a tourist.
Looking straight from the entrance of the Lincoln Memorial you see the large Washington monument, which is like the Cleopatra's Needle in Paris and London. Beyond that is the long Reflecting Pool and a the World War Memorial and beyond that is the Capitol Building of the Untied States. Walking from the Lincoln Memorial to the Reflecting Pool and beyond takes some time. On the way we wander past the excellent memorial to the Korean war veterans and those who died.

Flanking the reflecting pool are the many museums that make up the Smithsonian collection. We've no time to visit any but have a quick look in the visitors centre which looks strangely out of place as a red church. Nowhere else in America other than Central Park have I seen such large plots of land given away to green areas and monuments right in the heart of the city. The rain has thoroughly soaked us so we dry off in our favourite fast food establishment.
The downtown area of the city is like any other but seems to be bustling with restaurants and adverts for various nightlife activities. There's a healthy amount of students here too and it's all seems a bit cooler than I'd predicted. It's an attractive place too. The White House, not that you can even get close, and the memorials are just part of the attraction. The distinct neighbourhood of Georgetown is upper market and well kept in white board buildings and boutique shopping along fancy terraced streets of European brick. All very chic.
The river separates the city from the states around which means you're never far from anywhere else. I unexpectedly like Washington D.C. Only the high prices and bad weather put a bit of a dampener on things. In summer the place is supposed to be red hot. I thought it would be similar to Canberra in Australia. A sort of fake capital that was chosen so as not to favour one city over another, such as Philadelphia, Boston or New York. And although that was the case the Americans have made Washington D.C. a far more interesting city. The hordes of tourists help keep the streets alive as they could have easily been deserted at night as the max exodus of government workforce head for home in a neighbouring state at the end of the day.
I would definitely say that if you're ever in the area visiting Washington D.C. for a couple of days was worth it, even if it doesn't stop raining.

On the streets of...

As soon as we drive out of New Jersey the rain begins. We've had a lucky run of weather whilst in New York but that's now over. Just down the road from New York is another famous city, Philadelphia. What it's famous for I'm not sure but it's always one of those places mentioned in films or songs.
It turns out that it used to be the biggest city in the British Empire outside London. It no doubt still is a large place but it's skyline is not really how I remember it from films, only a handful of skyscrapers are gathered around the centre and the rest is the usual American sprawl.
It's such a sprawl that we have to stay near the airport to get a lower rate motel room and even that's still expensive. By chance on check-in the local pizza guy was chatting to the receptionist and he offers us a free pizza. Unfortunately it's the normal pizza standard we're used to here, terrible. Even worse is our first encounter throughout the whole world of cockroaches in our room. One in the bathroom at night and then another huge one in the morning that seemed like it must have fallen into toxic waste and grown a few extra inches.
I complained and got our money back but even now I'm unsure if I did fully after a pay mix-up in the first place.
Next day we decide to just have one go at seeing Philadelphia and moving on to somewhere else as it's too expensive for us. Instantly the grand Town Hall impresses with it's white stone decor and statues but up close it's not so gleaming. Around it there's litter and the stone almost crumbling in places and clearly in need of a good scrub.
The long street leading away from the town hall starts well with some decent places but soon turns into an almost ghetto feel. Apparently you stay away from East Philly, crime is rife but not that we saw any evidence of this.
Away from the downtown commerce area of town we head to what all the tourists come here to see. There's many blocks of red brick terrace housing and tree lined streets. These are all considered pretty old here as they must be ooh a hundred years old or near.
Around here is where a lot of historical events took place as Philadelphia was the centre of the American revolution and the place at which most of the meetings about the revolution against Britain took place. Older buildings still remain, one being a meeting house of the founding fathers of America. Every other thing is about independence and none more so than the site of the Liberty Bell within Independence Square. A large queue around the block gathered to see the Liberty Bell. I know pretty much zero about the Liberty Bell and have little interest either. I do know it's supposed to have a crack in it and that the long queue of people waiting to see it will only see a replica.
The declaration of independence was signed here and around the area is where founding father Benjamin Franklin resided. The house in which Ben Franklin lived has since been knocked down and only now only painted girders in a house shape are left. Here and there statues of Ben Franklin are dotted about showing yet another invention from this multi-talented individual. We learn he even owned property in Preston at one point in his life. The man must have been truly rampant with thoughts. He invented the lightening rod, bifocal lenses, a carriage odometer, a stove, the Franking machine(after his name) and a musical instrument among others.
We stroll to the industrial and grey dock area where huge influxes of Irish immigrants arrived during the potato famine. A couple of monuments to the way they were treated by the Americans upon arrival and how they struggled to get work as the widespread 'Irish need not apply' signs went up at places advertising jobs. All that changed when job shortages increased and more people were needed for the expansion going on throughout America.
Back to the cobbled streets around Independence Square and the colonial buildings around. We avoid the various food stands selling the 'famous' Philly steak sandwich which is just a steak sandwich with America's favourite topping for any food item whatsoever, cheese.
In a day in Philly we've seen run down neighbourhoods, rough around the edges downtown litter dodging and well preserved red brick colonial buildings with some pedestrian cobbled leafy streets thrown in for good measure. A couple of pointed, glinting skyscrapers and the good looking Franklin steel suspension bridge all give a good overall impression of Philadelphia and it was OK. I couldn't see a point in staying more than one night and that's why we didn't. On the whole it's alright but as is common with these cities, they just can't live up to their Hollywood portrayal.