Eastern Shore weekend
 

Four sisters want to take our Mom on a low-key B&B weekend (or mid-week visit) for her 70th birthday. She has mentioned Easton and St. Michael's in MD and the Lancaster area in PA. She enjoys being in the country or near the water, and small towns with nice shops and restaurants. Also considering Chincoteaque, basically somewhere within about 2-3 hours drive of Washington DC, around Sept-early Nov 03. We could use good seafood (or other) restaurant recommendations too. Many thanks!

I think St. Michaels and Talbot County Maryland would be perfect. On the water, small quaint shops and restaurants, and walkable with plenty to do for a couple days. I don't know if you'd want to go during one of the festivals (lots of folks but special activities), but look at the calendars online to see what's going on. St. Michaels has a "Fall Into St. Michaels" on the weekend of 25 Oct. and the Waterfowl Festival (very big)is in Easton on the weekend of 15 Nov. I didn't look to see what's earlier.

More info at
http://www.tourtalbot.org
http://www.stmichaelsmd.org

Once you decide, you can ask for more specific info. Many very nice hotels (waterfront too) and it all depends on what you want to pay.

Regards........K.

If your mom's partial to Lancaster PA, you might consider spending the weekend at the Strasburg Inn about 20 minutes southeast of Lancaster off Route 30. You could spend several days in the quaint little Amish towns such as Bird In Hand, Paradise, and Intercourse. They offer locally made furniture, baskets, crafts, and quilts! For more information, check out www,historicstrasburninn.com and 1001ads.com/lancaster/

Check out the Inn at Easton. Food and Wine featured it within the past year. We stayed at the Inn at Chestertown. It was a great place to stay. We liked eating at The Blue Heron in Chestertown so much we ate there twice. We thought St Michael's was a bit overdone however there are many shops to choose from. I'd say stay elsewhere and go there for an afternoon.

I'm joining this thread a bit late, but hope some of you are still around. When you say you stayed at the Inn at Chestertown...which one? A google search did not turn up such a place, but listed others such Hill's Inn at Chestertown, the Inn at Mitchell House, the Inn at Black-Eyed Susan, the Widow's Walk Inn B&B (great names), the Brampton B&B Inn, The Lauretum Inn B&B and so on. Would prefer a place that's not too tiny, and in the town. Also, do you know if/when there is a seafood festival in the fall in that area?

The state of Maryland does have a Seafood Festival at Sandy Point State Park (on the west side of the Bay Bridge,) in either August or September. It's bad news.

My wife and I went several years ago. Each of the food stands only sells one kind of seafood and is run by a local fire company or civic organization. The food is pricey--and bad. In other words, there's only one stand selling crab cakes. Another selling fish sandwiches. One selling french fries. One selling clam strips or whatever. Everything we tasted was processed, frozen seafood.

As there's no competition between the vendors, there's no incentive to provide good fresh seafood. And if you're selling the only crab cake in the festival, you can charge what the traffic will bear.

We love good seafood. In fact, I spent my summers on Smith Island when I was growing up. But that Seafood Festival does a serious misservice to the Maryland seafood industry.

That said, there's also a Hard Crab Derby in Crisfield around Labor Day. Never been there for it, but I guarantee you'll find great seafood there....