Belle Mount Vineyards Rep Says Northern Neck Wineries Not Worth Our Time

While we were attending the very boring wine festival in Kilmarnock Virginia, we spoke with a representative from Belle Mount Vineyards who did a great job of convincing us that the wineries in the Northern Neck are not worth our time. We believe him in regards to Belle Mount then. We are seeking to build an on line driving tour of wineries starting at the Williamsburg winery and finishing up at Oak Crest. This representative also told us that he was pretty confident that he was speaking for the other wineries as well in the Northern Neck. Well, we will contact all of them separately and let them tell us if they would like to be included in the tour.

Looks like Belle Mount Vineyards will not be on the list though. Our plan is to visit each winery, take our own pictures, create our own review web sites of each winery, link each winery then to a master site that will be the driving tour and also each review site will link the official web site of each winery with it. The wine tour we are looking to create is much different than anything else out in the marketplace today. We will have highlights of each winery, hours of operation, special features, some history of each winery, mileage between each winery, overall mileage from starting point to ending point if you visit all the wineries, and the time it will take to complete the tour. Which wineries are musts if you are limited on time, and custom maps that you can print out or link your GPS to.

What makes us different? We are not part of some kind of consortium, a government agency or paid company designed to put a spin on any of the vineyards. We do not have advertisers and we are not being paid to put this together for anyone. Everything we do comes out of our own pockets. So if we lost a potential friend in Belle Mount Vineyards, we really don’t care. We cover history, events, arts, culture and the art of living. So a winery driving tour is within our scope of interest. If in the event some of the other wineries feel the same as Belle Mount Vineyards, then we will scrap the tour and then cover the ones that are interested. There is no cost to any of the wineries so why not take advantage of it?

Kilmarnock Wine Festival, A Real Snooze

We decided to go to the Kilmarnock Wine Festival today. If you missed this event, no you didn’t. It was not even worth us getting out of the car. We had planned on taking pictures but with so few vendors and so few people, it wasn’t worth the battery power. If you are a wine lover like us, there was nothing there worth your time. As much as we would like to bring you a nice story, it just wasn’t there.

Kalmar Nyckel Sailing Into The Dock At Yorktown

The Kalmar Nyckel is seen here in this video sailing into dock in Yorkown this past weekend, June 14th, 2009.  The Kalmar Nyckel has been in the area since the Blackbeard Festival in Hampton, June 5th through the 7th, 2009.  The tall ship was only in Yorktown for the weekend taking paid customers out on 3 hour cruises.  She can be seen one more time in the South Eastern section of Virginia at the Harbor Fest in Norfolk Virginia.  The dates for that are July 3rd through the 5th this year.

We highly recommend taking the time to make the trip.  You won’t be disappointed.  To visit and learn more about the Kalmar Nyckel and The Kalmar Nyckel foundation, please visit them by CLICKING HERE.

Ceol Leinn Gave An Outstanding Performance Throughout The Weekend At The Hampton Blackbeard Festival

Ceol Leinn, pronounced (Key-Ole Lane-ya), gave outstanding performances throughout the entire weekend at the Hampton Blackbeard Festival June 6th and 7th, 2009.  They not only performed on one stage, they would take a break at the one stage and then proceed to the next stage in another section of the 3 block radious and give yet another performance.  The amount of energy and effort put out by the entertainers was nothing short of amazing when you look at everything they went through to entertain all the guests at the event.

With a head count of 75,000 visitors at the festival, this group was a major hit and one of the highlights of the festival for us.  The video above was shot at dusk which is why it appears so dark.  To learn more about Ceol Leinn, please CLICK HERE.

Blooper At The Hampton Blackbeard Festival

Here we captured a blooper during the Hampton Blackbeard Festival.  The English soldiers were firing on Blackbeard and his crew as they stole a ship that was in the harbor.  Pretty funny.

Darcy Nair In A Live Performance At The Hampton Blackbeard Festival

Darcy Nair shown here in this video giving a live performance to the crowds at the Blackbeard Festival in Hampton.  She is playing a hammered dulcimer.  It’s kind of like a piano and a guitar wrapped into one.  The sounds though are more intricate than either.  Just like any other instrument, it takes a great deal of practice and dedication to master and there are not a lot of people to train you on how to play these.   Darcy is a multi talented musician and singer as she also plays the Irish bouzouki, English concertina, bodhran and bones.

House of Cadarn, Live At The Blackbeard Festival In Hampton

The House of Cadarn are seen here in this video performing for the folks at the event.  This group did a wonderful job performing pirate shanties and entertaining the crowds all weekend.

So You Want To Be A Pirate, Aye? Take a lesson from Blackbeard’s Crew.

So you want to be a pirate, aye?  Here is some training that the folks over at Blackbeard’s Crew were giving to young ones during the Blackbeard Festival in Hampton, Virginia, June 6th and 7th, 2009.   It was a great time for people of all ages.  Last count we heard, the show pulled in over 75,000.

Blackbeard’s Crew To Raid Hampton, Virginia, June 6th and 7th, 2009

Blackbeard and his crew of scurvy dogs are planning a raid on Hampton, Virginia this weekend, June 5th, 6th, and 7th at the waterfront.  This is their annual event as well as their largest event of the year.  This year is rather special for a number of reasons and one of them being it is their 10th anniversary.  The other you will just have to go there and find out for yourselves.  With over 100 pirates expected to be there this weekend from all over the nation, the looting should be pretty darn good.  So unless grandma and grandpa are in for the weekend and all worn out, get your selves down to this event and experince a great time.  Learn what being a pirate was really like and not what you have seen on TV.  CLICK HERE for more information on each days events.