ABCDE Travel sunday, june 6, 2010


IMPULSIVE TRAVELER


Texas on the mind This Lone Star town has a story around every corner. F7


e


SPOTS 2010


TOP ★


Going Our Way Lighting out for the far northern territory. F3 Bed Check A Virginia B&B where you can nest with pleasure. F6


Your Vacation in Lights An Amazon adventure for two. F6 CHAT We answer reader questions 2 p.m. Monday at washingtonpost.com/travel


NAVIGATOR Cut rate


A new rule to make airlines reveal what you’re really paying to fly. F2


The mists of time


In 1810, William Wordsworth waxed lyrical about his beloved Lake District. Two hundred years later, the land’s beauty can still turn the modern traveler into a head-in-the-clouds romantic.


F


by Simon Akam Special to The Washington Post T


he yew trees at Seathwaite are great survi- vors. ¶ Their hunched and ancient trunks stand north of a cluster of whitewashed farm build- ings at the end of a road in the Borrowdale Val- ley in the English Lake District. Above them, old workings scar the hillside, shafts where, until


the late 19th century, men mined a substance they called black lead, wad or plumbago, and we would call graphite. ¶ I had come to Seathwaite bearing a 200-year-old description of the valley that gushed over the yews, claiming that “nothing of the kind can be conceived more solemn and impressive than the small gloomy grove.” Yet I had nursed little hope that the trees were still standing. So when a farmer pointed them out — still at large under banks of low cloud that hung like smoke in the air — I was thrilled.


lake continued on F4


Tourists visit Dove Cottage in Grasmere, where William Wordsworth spent his most prodigious years as a poet, but for a truer sense of the man and his muse, wander “lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills” to places such as Wastwater, England’s deepest lake, top.


PHOTOS BY SIMON AKAM; WORDSWORTH ENGRAVING VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS; BOOK COVER, KIRKLAND BOOKS


DC2NY Unveils DC2theC


Bus service lets you coast all the way to the beach


by Andrea Sachs Flavio Amaya doesn’t own a car, so the


Washington resident must rely on the kindness of friends, or a rental, to get to Rehoboth Beach to soak up the rays. Dior Toney does have wheels, but a few hours before he was supposed to drive out to Dewey Beach for Memorial Day


weekend, the hood flew straight up, sab- otaging his holiday plans. Pat Avery possesses a car, and it works;


however, she and her partner find that halfway through the return trip from Re- hoboth, drowsiness sets in, forcing them to pull off the road for a catnap. The Fair- fax couple would prefer to drive straight through, but their circadian rhythms dic- tate otherwise. Yet none of these circumstances mat- tered on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, when DC2NY, the low-cost bus line to Manhattan, started weekend serv- ice from Washington to the Delaware


beaches of Rehoboth and Dewey. Prior to that night, you had few transportation options from Washington to those sun- drenched destinations — no direct train, no major airport, no nearby Greyhound depot. But this summer, your ocean- bound chariot awaits.


When the bus pulled out for its inau-


gural run, I was among 40 others dressed sunnily in shorts and sandals, our canvas totes, backpacks and black rolling bags following close behind. To experience the bus in its finest and toughest moments (holiday rush hour, eastbound on an ear- ly weekend morning, Sunday evening beach crush, etc.), I boarded four times over three days, first for an overnight


bus continued on F6 MICHAEL ZAHARUK FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164