Get Out of Town – Ideas for Easy Weekend Trips A New Series By Raz

Veramar Vineyard

 

Sometimes you just want to get out of town. DC has its charm, but sometimes you just hit that point where you’ve had enough of the same bars, restaurants, people, routine and it’s time for a change of scenery. Luckily, there are a ton of easy weekend or day trips from the DC-area.

 

For this first edition, I will be reviewing Veramar Vineyard in Berryville, Va. (http://www.veramar.com/). I spent the weekend here in October for a friend’s wedding.

 

I had always been curious about the Virginia vineyards. I had heard good things, but wasn’t sure what to expect.

The vineyard is beautiful. At that time in the fall, the leaves were starting to turn and the grass was a bright green. Rolling hills flow throughout the vineyard. Veramar was smaller than I anticipated. We spent time there in the afternoon before the wedding walking around and doing a wine tasting. For the wine tasting, we sampled a handful of wines, all of which were delicious. The wines had interesting names like Rooster Red and Pink Chicken.  Continues after the jump.

 

The vineyard is about two hours outside of DC. We stopped for lunch in historic Leesburg, and luckily stumbled upon a motorcycle festival.

 

 

Veramar is an easy day trip, but if you are going to have a heavy hand with the wine, there are plenty of inexpensive hotels in Winchester, Va. We stayed at a hotel about 10 miles away from the vineyard, and took a cab there.

Winchester is also home to every clog-your-arteries restaurant in the book, many of which we do not have here in DC, such as Waffle House. Sonic, the TV tease that I have never seen in DC or the DC suburbs, is also there. We settled on IHOP for our post-wedding-wine-overload breakfast.

 

There are also campgrounds and hiking trails in the area if that is your thing.