Annapolis is the capital of Maryland and makes for an easy tourist outing from Washington, located just 30 miles to the east. One day, we went. It was a perfect day with blue skies and light breezes.
The downtown is adorable. Parking is not. One of the main attractions is the Naval Academy.
Lots of shops and antiques to gasp at.
There are boat tours and water taxis.
We ate on the south side and while it was quieter, we did not think the food was anything special.
We did stop at a cafe, Curated, and that was lovely. A young golden haired youth was sitting at the next table reading a Torah, a copy of Milton’s works, and a notebook in which he was taking concise notes with an old fashioned ink pen. No cell phone in sight. I wondered if he was a wraith, a time traveler, dropped into our world by the fumes of my coffee… it turned out that he was studying the connection between Milton’s assertions about the role of poetry in the Torah. He was going to do a doctoral thesis on this. We talked briefly about poetry. Then he left us to our breakfast. A bit later, a very modern young woman, cell phone attached to hand, sat down next to him. She asked what he was doing. He told her. At the blank look on her face, he asked if she had heard of Milton’s Paradise Lost. She said that she thought she had. Clearly no spark there. She got up and left quickly after that.
I remarked to my friend that artsy young men like that one were so unusual in the greater Washington area but probably not so out of place in New York City.
If you visit Annapolis, you might not meet any interesting scholars, but you can absorb the history anyway.
