Georgia Road Trip, Part 1

Last weekend was a long weekend for us with a holiday on Monday. Daniel and I used the opportunity for a road trip in Georgia. We wanted to explore an area we hadn't been to and decided to stay in Americus, GA as our base for exploration.

As I researched hotels in Americus, I discovered the historic victorian Windsor Hotel right downtown and we decided we simply had to stay here. 

 It is run by Best Western and we found it quite affordable.

The lobby alone was worth the visit.

 Such a magnificent building and so nicely restored and maintained.

At some point during the weekend, we saw all the hotel guests taking their picture in this huge mirror. We thought we were so clever...

Our room was on the second floor, but of course we had to explore the entire hotel. 

The hotel has two restaurants, one for fine dining and the other a pub, which is where we ate. The food we had was really good. 

Of course, an old hotel like this has to have a haunting or two. We read all about it after the shutters in our room kept closing and opening by themselves. We found it interesting, but other than that, we had no ghostly visitors.

As legend has it, there is a mother and child and an old porter who still roam the hotel and try to interact with the guests.

Breakfast was served in the elegantly restored dining room. 

That was a little more breakfast than I had thought it would be, but since we ended up skipping lunch, it served us well.

If you zoom in and look at the floor, it is a mosaic of tiny tiles. 

That was only the hotel part of our trip. We were so surprised by everything we saw and visited that I am going to overwhelm you with photos in my next few posts. 

It's too much to put in one post alone. Plus, the four places we visited in the vicinity of Americus were all completely different from one another.

One thing I can say for sure, Georgia keeps surprising us. Stay tuned...

❧ Silke

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Aside from the Edward Hopper exhibit, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was beyond impressive. We had no idea how huge it is and only saw about a third of its collection. It definitely calls for another trip!

The Faberge flowers were exquisite.

Ancient art from east and west.

This was a huge piece of art "painted" entirely with pins. I would not have the patience!

This painting was equally large and painted in layers with resin in between, which gave it a lot of depth.

 The details in this piece were stunning as well!

As we were eating lunch we watched this bridal party taking photos. They must have been freezing as it was not a warm day!

We were lucky in the timing of our trip. Just three days before, this statue was moved from Times Square in New York City to it's new permanent location at the VMFA.

A magnificent work of art!

Hopefully you enjoyed this little stroll through the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It's definitely worth a visit! I know we'll be back...

I wish you all a relaxing Sunday! We are getting ready for the start of school tomorrow. Let the fun begin! :)

❧ Silke

Edward Hopper Exhibit

A few weeks ago we drove to Richmond, VA especially to see this Edward Hopper exhibit. We are both great fans of this magnificent artist.

I have much more to share of Richmond, but first I wanted to show you some photos I took at the exhibit.

They aren't the best photos. Even though it was allowed to photograph the art, I always feel like I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing.

What I found most fascinating were seeing some of his preliminary sketches next to the final artwork and the changes he ended up making. 

Now, here we have an actual hotel room (below) that was recreated from the painting above. 

What we found out just this morning from a radio interview, you could book this hotel room for $150 a night. There would be guards around at night, but we could have slept in a Hopper painting! If only we had known...

❧ Silke