Rediscovering America_ Exploring the Small Towns of Virginia & Maryland - Bill Burnham [118]
My Fair Lady Bed & Breakfast is a beautifully restored, elaborate Queen Ann Victorian with a three-story octagonal tower and wrap-around porch. (38 W. Main Street, tel. 410-968-0352, www myfairladybandb.com, $$)
Pet-friendly: Gossamer Bed & Breakfast welcomes well-behaved children and pets with prior notice. The house was built in 1909 by Dr. R. Ransom Norris in the Mission/Arts and Crafts style. It’s decorated with the innkeeper’s love for the old and “odd,” and the grounds have been designed to attract wildlife. (211 S. Somerset Avenue, tel. 410-968-3478, www.bbonline.com/md/gossamer, $)
If you want to stay on the water, or within walking distance of the marina, there are several motels. Somers Cove Motel is part of Somers Cove Marina (if driving from town, follow the blue signs). Rooms facing the front have expansive views of the marshes, rooms in the back overlook the marina and Somers Cove. (700 Robert Norris Drive, tel. 410-968-1900, $)
The Cove has nine rooms, all with whirlpool or Jacuzzi, and overlooks the marina. (218 Broadway, tel. 410-425-2771 or 410-968-2220, $$$); the Paddlewheel Motel at 701 W. Main Street has 14 rooms, some with hot tubs. (tel. 410-968-2220, $$)
Pet-friendly: The Pines Motel has 40 rooms (some are efficiencies) and a pool; it’s near the marina. (tel. 410-968-0900, $)
Information
Crisfield Visitor’s Center, 3 Ninth Street at Somers Cove Marina. Open Monday-Friday, 9 am-4:30 pm (April-November). Also open Saturday, 9 am-2 pm, mid-April to mid-October (tel. 410-968-2501). The city’s official Web site is www.crisfield.org. Also check out the community Web site, www.crisfield.com, for more visitor information.
Somerset County Tourism, located in Princess Anne, tel. 800-521-9189, http://skipjack.net/le_shore/visitsomerset.
TRIVIA: The difference between Maryland and Virginia crab chowder is actually no trivial matter. Residents of both states claims theirs is the best. Maryland’s has a tomato base with vegetables like green beans, peas and corn. Virginia’s version has a white, creamy base, usually without vegetables, and normally with the moniker “she-crab” applied.
Event
On Labor Day weekend the Hard Crab Derby and Fair features the Governor’s Cup crab races, drawing fast crabs from all over. Thousands of crabs are then steamed for the seafood feast.
Trip Journal: Princess Anne
Thoroughly ensconced in the capital seat of Somerset County, the Washington Hotel and Inn is not only a landmark and institution in Princess Anne, but a family business four generations in the making. While the original portion of the structure dates to 1797, there’s been an ordinary (a tavern with lodging) on this site since 1744.
Colleen Murphey’s great-grandparents bought the hotel in 1937. Her grandmother, Mary Murphey, still runs the inn, even in her mid-eighties (we didn’t get to meet her, though, for when we were there she had gone off to play bridge!). Colleen’s father, Robert, ran the adjacent restaurant for 22 years. Now his 23-year-old daughter, a recent business graduate of The University of Maryland Eastern Shore right here in Princess Anne, is taking over the restaurant with gusto. She renamed it Murphey’s Pub, and when we visited in spring 2002, father and daughter were in the throes of renovating the dining rooms, selecting Colonial paint schemes and flooring, all while keeping open for the local lunchtime crowd. “We couldn’t close,” says Colleen. “Families come back here generation after generation. The hotel has always been a focal point of the town.” The “new” menu works off what Robert Murphey found successful, largely regional comfort foods: homemade soups, chicken and dumplings, stewed tomatoes, oysters, and perhaps muskrat, when in season.
You could certainly say the hospitality business is in this young woman’s blood – and genes. Like her dad and his mother before him, Colleen grew up running around the corridors