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Saturday, April 18, 2015

Airlie Gardens

Airlie Gardens are a historic non-profit garden located in Wilmington, North Carolina. They have historic buildings, cemeteries, walking trails, wildlife, formal gardens, a 468 year old Oak Tree and butterfly gardens.


I love nature and being surrounded by it. After leaving historic downtown Wilmington, my grandmother suggested that this should be our next destination. And so we took off, got lost on the way, but made it to the gates of Airlie Gardens. We paid for our admission and headed in. I was surprised by how vast the gardens really were. We walked through most of it and it was absolutely beautiful.



 This is a relaxing destination for anyone in the Wilmington area. I try to incorporate some sort of nature and or hiking into my trips. I love how different destinations are from one another and being in nature helps to relax me. I was amazed at all the perfect photography opportunities there were for me. This would be a perfect place for a photographer interested in landscape photography.

 

           This was my first time seeing purple tulips! Which happen to be my favorite flowers!


We visited the bottle chapel that is onsite. It is a structure that was built with cement and bottles (wine, beer, syrup bottles, ect). This was a very peaceful and soothing part of the gardens. I love how they created designs, such as, the butterfly out of the bottles.



We were lucky enough to see some wildlife while we were touring the gardens. This was my first time seeing swans in their natural habitat. What beautiful creatures! The male swam around the nest the female was on, but never ventured far from her.





I would undoubtedly recommend anyone in the area to stop and tour these gardens. The scenery is absolutely stunning. It is recommended that it will take an hour to an hour and a half to tour the complete area. Adult and children tickets are available online or at the gardens. Airlie Gardens offer discounted tickets to military personnel that can only be purchased at the gardens. They are open Monday- Sunday 9am-5pm (last tickets will be sold at 4:30pm). Airlie Gardens host lots of events throughout the year. Perhaps you will have the added bonus of a concert while in the area!

The following link will take you to their website: http://airliegardens.org/

Do you like to incorporate nature into your trips? If so what type of nature?

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Wilmington, North Carolina

America is such a beautiful country with so much to see! The other weekend I took a road trip with my brother and his fiancée. We drove through Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina. Our final destination was Wilmington, North Carolina to visit family. We woke up early Saturday morning and hit Wilmington in order to make the most of our only day in the city. We walked through historic downtown Wilmington and River Street looking at all the shops.



 We randomly decided to stop for brunch/early lunch at Dixie Grill. We chose this place because there were so many people standing outside it. That must mean they have good food . . . right? It was a little bit of a wait, but well worth it. The food was absolutely delicious!! We didn't have to wait long on the food once we were seated and the service was great.


And the syrup bottles were old coke bottles!
We visited the outside of Bellamy Mansion. There was too long of a wait for the tour and we had other things we wanted to see. It was a beautiful historic home.


We spent the rest of the morning driving around Wilmington looking at all the historic homes. Almost every home is in the historic area is a home with some sort of history to the country or to the city of Wilmington. The historic placards on the home provide you with the history of the home. Some of the homes are open for the public to tour and some are not. Wilmington has a trolley that you can take or horse carriages if you would like for someone to tell you the history of the city. They start on River street, along with the ghost tours. In our next post will be Wilmington: Airlie Gardens and USS North Carolina Battleship.