Our Spontaneous Weekend Getaway

This past weekend my hubby and I decided to take a spur of the moment trip to Annapolis, MD. We didn’t know what there was to do, but all we knew was this was our last free weekend for the rest of the summer and we wanted to take full advantage of this. So we checked out a few sites to find cheap hotel deals, and we ended up using hotwire.com. I had seen the commercials but never used this site so we weren’t sure what to expect. With hotwire they listed what accommodations each hotel had, the nightly price, as well as the amenities, but they didn’t list the name of the hotel until afterwards. Hotwire listed a handful of hotels in the Annapolis area, and we picked one and booked it, and turns out it was a Holiday Inn Express, and we were very happy with it.

Holiday Inn Express in Historic Annapolis had a lot to offer. First off their customer service was excellent. The woman behind the desk was very helpful and pleasant and also offered several suggestions of places to eat and sites to check out. Second this hotel offered a complimentary breakfast in the mornings. This wasn’t just your typical bagels, bananas and orange juice. They had yogurt, cereal, eggs, cinnamon rolls, French toast and more…We were very impressed! The third thing that we liked is that we didn’t have to pay for parking, it was included. So many places make you pay to park and I think that can get a bit ridiculous. Finally, they had a fitness center and free wifi which were really nice. My husband had wanted to try out the gym...if only he had brought his sneakers...maybe next time. :)

While we were in Annapolis, MD we took a trolley tour around historic Annapolis and it was really interesting. We learned that the buildings have metal seals on them to mark what architectural style they are - victorian, georgian etc. We learned that St John’s College is known as the school of great books because their students read their way through their education with the “classics” and we also learned that this college has “tutors” not instructors or professors because they encourage open dialogue and discussion between students and their mentors. We went past the Naval Academy, historic Hammond house and so many other neat historic buildings. It was also really nice to just sit on the dock and watch the boats come in and go out.

We also walked up and down main street and browsed through their local shops, and if anyone loves ice cream I strongly suggest you visit Annapolis Ice Cream Company. They make their own ice cream and it is the best ice cream I have ever had. I tried the mint chocolate chip, the mint Oreo, the orange chocolate, the raspberry chocolate chip, the vanilla toffee and Sean had the vanilla peanut butter and the mint chocolate chip. We went back several times during the course of the weekend…who’s worried about a few extra calories? It was worth it!

It was a great weekend getaway!

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