Sat 6 Apr - Virginia Beach, VA

It's dawn and it's coooollld out there.

Virginia Beach at sunrise looked very pretty from the warmth of our room but we noticed barely anybody was brave enough to face the elements in the early morning.

After breakfast, we go out with the intention to walk the full length of the Virginia Beach Boardwalk, which is not a boardwalk at all anymore, as the promenade is all made of concrete. We eventually do the length of the boardwalk twice, with additional detours inland.
We start off by walking south from our hotel and this is just on the other side of Virginia Beach Pier.
As you can tell by Di's hairstyle the wind is howling (20 knots or more). At a maximum of 9 degrees today, with the wind it feels a bit colder. We walked for about half an hour but the boardwalk south finishes quite abruptly at Rudee Inlet, where there is an opening onto the Atlantic. No footbridge across and it didn't look very interesting inland so we turned around here.
We did, however, decide to walk inland a couple of blocks a bit further north. The inlet provided water for a couple of small lakes and we decided to check out those. This is the northeastern view towards the fun park across one of those lakes. Much quieter on this side of town and normal residential.
Virginia Beach Boulevard is the main route into Virginia Beach from the west, but today there were doing some traffic light maintenance, so parts of it was closed off for traffic. Of course, this provided opportunity for photography up and down the boulevard... This is looking west.
And this is looking east. The beach and the Atlantic is just behind what you can see.
Back to Virginia Beach Boardwalk but after an hour and a half in the cold wind we opt for a free coffee as a break in the lobby of our hotel before continuing.
Revived we head north and continue. Still not crowded, a few late starters we think and those who feel the cold. A few more boardwalk photos below.
There were several of these red parking meters along the promenade. Eye catching and self explanatory if you can read the text underneath (In summary, if you want to donate to help poor people put money into the parking meter and the council will distribute. They discourage panhandling).
It is amazing what you encounter when you just wander along a new environment somewhat aimlessly. Right of a sudden we encounter a Norwegian flag next to an American one. We go there to investigate and then there is this statue. The inscription under the woman starts with "I am the Norwegian Lady..."
Here is the story behind the Norwegian connection. Who would have known? Virginia Beach and Moss in Norway are now sister cities. A good story promoting life saving.
Continuing on Virginia Beach Boardwalk, we encounter another interesting statue, King Neptune we presume... There is an annual Virginia Beach Neptune Festival to celebrate the beginnings of the City of Virginia Beach. Prominent citizens of the area have been selected to lead the festival as King Neptune I and II etc.
There is also a monument honoring the fallen law enforcement officers from Virginia Beach.
Horse riding was offered on the beach...
This guy, one of the providers, took one of the horses out for a spin...
Well, it just looked good with all the horses and riders against the Atlantic Ocean...not for us though, we would both be hopeless with the horses.
We saw this lady from Nova Scotia sunbathing all by herself...seriously, she was in a swimsuit!
When you got to go, you got to go...
And this guy must be an optimist beyond belief...
OK, this also just looked good...
By 1.30pm or so, we decided to get out of the wind for a while, so decided to get a bite and go back to the room for a while. We are not interested in exploring the shops on Atlantic Avenue as they all sell exactly the same beach tourist stuff or you get called to as you walk past by someone trying to sell your a tour.
Runkeeper stats for our eventual 12.7 km up and down Virginia Beach boardwalk hike as follows:

Di got herself a take away Tom Kha Chicken soup from our Thai shop next door and Hans had tea and some sandwiches from our own supply. All comfortably consumed in our room.

A few hours after sheltering from the wind and we decided to explore with the car, and headed along the shore towards Norfolk.

First to the point between the Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay. You can't really reach the point as the Navy have a "expeditionary joint base" (whatever that means) there. Naughty naughty Di.

The boardwalk back to the last public street before the navy base. Residential homes are on the left, the base is on the right. Not sure that we would choose to live so close to a US military location...

Returning to Shore Drive we follow around the southern edge of Chesapeake Bay, and stop at one of many access points to the beach. The beach and dunes in this area are more "natural".

We can't get enough of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and take more photos. Yep, the long structure in the distance is a small portion of the Bridge-Tunnel.

We continue our drive to Norfolk but are uninspired by what we see.

When searching for a place to eat we find what we think is a Grill but the signs outside warning about "no gang colours" among other "no"s should have been a giveaway that it was a basic, rough bar that served some food. We moved on.

After another stop to check out a menu (tourist trap) we try out a seafood place, called Hot Tuna, in a strip mall closer to Virginia Beach. What a find! We both had really great fish meals in a nice environment. A unique dish that Hans chose was Cedar Plank Rockfish, which came out hot on a wooden plank giving the fish a great smokey flavour. Di's panko fried flounder was also good, both with yummy garlic mash. A very nice dinner.

Any after photo would have shown scraped clean plates...

It is still cold outside so we return to our hotel to warm up and prep for a big day on the road again tomorrow. Goodnight.

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