Last Trip to the Beach

Chris and I have fallen in love with Rehoboth Beach over the last few years.  I've lost count of the number of times that we have been there for the weekend.  It's only a couple of hours from DC and has the most gorgeous beach, brilliant restaurants and a huge tax free shopping outlet!

We knew that the weather on Sunday was due to be bad so we designated that as our shopping day and had a lovely long walk on the beach on Saturday.

There were tons of dolphins swimming by and they were closer to the beach than we had ever seen them when we've been here before.

We had to of course visit the British fish and chip shop on the ocean front!

And have my favourite chocolate dipped frozen custard, mmm!

On Sunday we had a huge shopping trip stocking up on cheap clothes and shoes before we move back to the UK.  We shouldn't need to buy another pair of trainers now for about 10 years!

Eating our way around Philadelphia

Chris and I had visited Philadelphia a few times before but we decided to just take one more trip there before we left DC primarily to revisit all the food places that we love.

We had visited all of touristy places in Phillie that we wanted to see so we just had a wonder around and revisited a few places.

Our hotel was really close to Reading Terminal Market which is the brilliant food market so we found ourselves spending a lot of time wondering around there over the weekend.

One place that we hadn't been into before in Philadelphia was Macy's.  We wouldn't normally go into a Macy's while away for the weekend as there are plenty near us in DC but Chris was looking for something in particular so we found ourselves in there.  We were totally shocked by the inside of the store.  It's a really old department store with lots of the original features including an old pipe organ.

We've seen the Liberty Bell before but as we were passing by we thought we might as well go in again for one final visit.

For dinner on Saturday night we visited Max Brenner's.  This is one of our fav restaurants in the US.  They're famous for their desserts but their main courses are actually really good too.  We've worked our way through quite a few things on the menu now so this time we decided to go for the chocolate fondue.

No visit to Philadelphia is complete without a quick visit to Love Park...

And we had to visit our favourite ice cream parlour Franklin Fountain for a Franklin Mint just one last time...

DC Chocolate Tour

At the beginning of March my friend Lora and I went on a chocolate walking tour of DC.  A guide led us around the Dupont Circle area of DC taking us to some of the less well known but amazing chocolate places.  I didn't take many photos on the tour but have found another blog with some photos of the food and places that we went to so check that out if you're interested!

We started the tour in Firehook Bakery which is a fantastic place.  The cakes and bread are just amazing and we were given a small chocolate brownie caramel tart to taste.  I could happily have stayed there all day just sampling different treats!  Next stop was Larry's cupcakes.  Lora and I are both huge cake fans and when we go out together we usually just go out for dessert rather than bothering with dinner!  We couldn't believe that we had never heard about Larry's the chocolate cake that they served us was warm and possibly one of the best cakes that I have ever eaten.  The owner of the shop was lovely and also let the tour group sample as many different ice creams as we wanted.  Mmmm!

Next stop was Capital Teas for some chocolate tea.  Lora and I weren't interested in this one.  Neither of us are tea drinkers so we just waited inpatiently while everyone else drank tea.

Next we went on to Yocake.  This random place had only recently opened and their speciality was serving a cupcake with frozen yoghurt.  Bit strange and nice enough but I'd be happy having one or the other, I don't feel the need to eat both together.  I can't see it catching on really.

Dolcezza gelato was the next stop on the tour where we got to sample lots of different chocolate gelatos.  The final stop was at Diablo where we had some of the tastiest treats ever.  A great place for anyone with a sweet tooth to visit.