The Holiday Season has officially started. The President lighted the National Christmas Tree this Thursday near White House. The streets, offices and other venues are decorated and lighted for the Holidays. Various Holiday events are happening in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area. Dave and I decided to get into holiday spirit by visiting some of these events. We have already visited ICE! at the National Harbor. This time we planned to watch the annual Alexandria Holiday Boat Parade of Lights at the Potomac Riverfront.
It was a beautiful day; the parade is supposed to start in the evening, so we decided at the last minute to visit the Scottish Christmas Walk Parade, which was just started. It took no time for us to drive to Old Town Alexandria, but after trying to find any possible parking there, we realized that our spontaneous decision wasn’t that good. The Parade was almost over, we finally were able to park our car at the nearest Metro station after someone just pulled out. We were lucky. 🙂 So, we gave up on the parade and decided to take a walk on the beautifully decorated King Street to the Riverfront, have lunch there, visit the Torpedo Factory and then watch the Boat Parade of Lights. We did enjoy our walk in Old Town Alexandria. Here is a picture of the cozy King Street.
To our surprise, we noticed that the Scottish Christmas Walk parade was still going. We walked faster, but we were able to see only the very end of the parade. The Scottish Parade is an annual event. Hundreds of Scottish clansmen march through Old Town Alexandria with their bagpipes in a traditional holiday parade. Also participating are pipe and drum bands, Scottish dancers, re-enactment groups, Scottie dog groups, dignitaries and, of course, Santa Claus.
According to campagnacenter.org, in 1749, the city of Alexandria was officially established by three Scottish merchants and named after its original founder John Alexander, also of Scottish descent. Today, the city continues celebrating its heritage with a weekend of festivities including a tour of historic homes, a children’s tea party, a Celtic Concert and a Christmas Marketplace and Café. Here are a couple of pictures of the end of the parade.
The parade was over, but numerous parade participants were walking the streets and taking pictures with some families who attended the parade.
Some band members were heading towards Riverfront for the Scottish music concert scheduled there.
We went towards Riverfront as well to choose a place for lunch.
I like Old town Alexandria, its cute streets with a variety of cozy restaurants and boutiques.
Some people had lunch outside of the restaurants like in this picture below.
We were thinking about having lunch at the Irish restaurant O’Connell’s, but it was really crowded, so we decided to keep looking.
We chose The Warehouse Bar & Grill. It is a nice restaurant with great food and elegant atmosphere like many restaurants in this area. What caught our eyes was caricatures of historic and political figures lining the walls of this steak and seafood restaurant, and some famous folks have been known to show up in person.
Most of them are pictures, but some are sculpture-like with the heads protruding from the pictures.
Even the border wall was covered with caricatures. We had an enjoyable long brunch in the corner by the window, where Dave is sitting below.
It was nice sitting at the window looking at the street and people go by.
Then, we went to the Torpedo Factory Art Center, home to the largest collection of publicly accessible working artist studios in the U.S. An Alexandria landmark for more than 40 years, it’s the highlight of the Potomac Riverfront.
The first floor was decorated like a walk in the winter woods . There were a few shops on the first floor, but most of the shops are located on the 2nd and 3rd floors.
According to the torpedofactory.org, the Torpedo Factory consists of 82 artists’ studios, seven galleries, two workshops, and the Alexandria Archaeology Museum. Artworks are displayed in a wide variety of media including painting, ceramics, photography, jewelry, stained glass, fiber, printmaking, and sculpture. The artists invite visitors to join them in their studios. Here is one of the art shops on the second floor.
Pictures covered even the hall walls.
Climbing to the third floor.
Dave is on Santa Claus’s seat before his arrival. Santa hadn’t arrived yet, but he is supposed to be at the Torpedo Factory until 7 p.m.
More various art shops are on the 3rd floor. Some art works are gorgeous. I really like the “Inner Voice” painting below by Susan Makara. Her work can be found in the School of Art Museum in Buenos Aires, at the U.S. State Department, in the homes of James Brady and Barbara Bush, and at the Garden Court in Jordan’s Royal Palace.
Source: thetargetgallery.blogspot.com
Another cool art shop.
This art studio also has a beautiful harbor view.
Dave and I got down to the harbor shortly after viewing Torpedo Factory. There were lots of seagulls flying around.
Here is the “Cherry Blossom”, one of six authentic split sternwheelers in the country.
Some boats (on the right) were getting ready to participate in the boat parade.
A view of the Torpedo Factory from the Riverfront docks.
Dave asked the harbor master for the boat parade route, and we moved to the nearest park for the best view. The river banks and the boats looked especially beautiful during sunset.
When the sun set, the surroundings became covered with a soft pink light. The Woodrow Wilson bridge.
Always busy Seagulls.
The Potomac and its banks.
Santa was scheduled to arrive on a fireboat in the water taxi slip near the Chart House restaurant. Santa was supposed to visit each floor of the Torpedo Factory to welcome guests. Shortly, the fireboat left the Riverfront.
And the Boat Parade of Lights has begun. Here is a short description of the parade from virginia.org. The Alexandria Holiday Boat Parade of Lights is a favorite holiday celebration in both Old Town Alexandria and Washington, DC. Alexandria’s harbor lights up as dozens of illuminated boats cruise the Potomac River at the historic waterfront, led by Alexandria’s fireboat The Vigilant and Washington, DC’s fireboat John Glenn. DC media personality Tommy McFly of 94.7 Fresh FM will be the parade announcer. Below is the first boat of the parade.
Some boats had elaborate light decorations. Here are the Eifel Tower and the Washington Monument in the picture below.
A few other pretty lighting designs.
The light decorations on the boat below is my favorite.
Zoom in picture of the boat above. Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus.
The boats were following one after another with a short interval between, following each other to the Woodrow Wilson bridge and back to the marina. The crowd cheered them on, and the boat crew cheered back to the crowd.
Those are funny light decorations. Characters got sea-sick. 🙂
The parade was over, and we were heading back to the Metro station to get our car. It was amazing to see the Old Town transformation at night. Beautiful street lights made the town look festive and mysterious at the same time. There is a free trolley available from Old Town to the Metro center, but because of the heavy traffic this night we decided it would be quicker to walk.
The sidewalks were crowded as well.
I can’t believe how warm this December is so far. It was so nice strolling the beautiful streets of Old Town and observing festive shop displays.
This is the Anthropologie windows display.
We took a look inside the store. We found nice decorations and a neat layout in the store.
There were more beautiful window displays on our way to the Metro station.
Alexandria’s holiday magic is infectious! It really brings out the holiday spirit. You can catch it just by walking under the King Street lights, captured in this photo below.
