Amazing Virginia Beach

Amazing Virginia Beach

We travelled to Virginia Beach on a recent weekend. Five bands on the beach and an air show of daredevil pilots willing to dive to the water just a few feet above death were just part of the excitement.

The city has changed since our last visit seven years ago. It is clean as a whistle with lots of new buildings. The concrete boardwalk, built to withstand the strongest storms, is six miles long. In addition, there is a second, inner boardwalk for bicycles and strange contraptions that whole families or pairs of lovers can wheel along the miles and watch the watchers, hotels, and walkers as well as the beach activity.

We stayed at the Hilton, which may be the only five star hotel on the Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island. Expensive, but worth it for a special occasion. We had a corner room and great visibility for the air show and the beach and we had room service during the three-hour show. Very privileged. The Navy jets did not perform because of the sequester, but the civilian air show pilots are allowed to demonstrate more daring and more complex flight skills.

The beach is wonderful. You can walk for miles if you wish on walkable sand like at Myrtle Beach with hard sand and no fences between properties. Virginia Beach, in my opinion, is now one of three best beaches on the east coast. Congratulations to the city managers and elected officials who have engineered the transformation in the past decade.

I wish our slightly closer, nearby beaches in Delaware and Maryland had more upscale hotels and longer dual boardwalks.

Here is  picture of King Neptune, an iconic figure on the beach, perfect for picture taking.