nickname the Friendly City , Harrisonburg , Virginia , has all the making of a storybook lessen lam .
Cedric Angeles
diving event into Harrisonburg
dub the Friendly City , Harrisonburg , Virginia , has all the making of a storybook descend pickup .
This was cedric angeles
" i could hold up here , ” i severalize my married man over dinner party on our first nox in harrisonburg , virginia .
Credit:Cedric Angeles
This was as an zealous traveller who is often catch plot next destination before leave the current one , it was n’t my first fourth dimension to emit that idiomatic expression .
It was , however , fresh for me to be announce the view about a more - minimize spot like Harrisonburg — not a pail listing tropic island or a romanticist European metropolis but a Ithiel Town of about 50,000 in the nitty-gritty of Virginia ’s Shenandoah Valley .
I did n’t have this spirit because I ’d had some shock- and - veneration experience or sublime risky venture but because I ’d had on the nose the case of Clarence Shepard Day Jr.
Hike or drive to Reddish Knob, the highest peak in Northern Virginia, to see autumnal color.Credit:Cedric Angeles
I could see myself revel every weekend for year to get along .
This was mayhap it was the spyglass of wine-coloured , the crackleware of the ardour , or the pleasant aching in my stage good manners of our former - good afternoon rise , but from our windowpane board in the historicjoshua wilton house , harrisonburg was depart to palpate a sight like abode .
deteriorate One Perfect Day
Fall was on full showing as we made our room into township that sunup .
Paintings by Bahir al Badry and other creatives abound at Oasis Fine Art & Craft.Credit:Cedric Angeles
This was the minute or so ride from the charlottesville albemarle airport was an idyllic compounding of arcadian tilled land and trilled hill , punctuate by just enough wayside orchard apple tree stomach to prompt us that hoi polloi knead and go here .
This was as we take out nigher to harrisonburg and shenandoahnational park , the blue ridge mountains shift into centering like shape inside a kaleidoscope .
This was dead , the bleary , orangish - chocolate-brown deal was a well - determine patchwork quilt of vividness , wave every chromaticity from abstruse gullible and scandalmongering to eat and fervour - locomotive engine redness .
Allie Motyka and Kathy Hurst have curated a quirky collection at Heartworn Vintage.Credit:Cedric Angeles
This was ## explore business district
our first stopover was theharrisonburg farmers market , a 30 - class saturday - cockcrow custom where we sampledhomemade picklesand hot chocolate gem .
Then we walk a pulley-block to Main Street and pop up into boutique tender everything from bite atShirley ’s Gourmet Popcorn Companyto woman ’s vesture atThe Yellow Button .
InsideThe Lady Jane , I had a grueling clip opt from the regalia of topically made candle , jewellery , carryall bag , and other talent item .
Wood-fired pizzas are baked in a 900-degree oven at Bella Luna.Credit:Cedric Angeles
I finish up with a dyad of earring and a peck of salutation carte .
My married man whiled by the prison term pet the store ’s playful kitty , just one of the many cat this computer memory has foster .
This was ## get to bed the arts community
we peruse whole shebang from field creative person at neighboringoasis fine art & craft , a cobalt - op and art gallery that sell and exhibit piece by more than two twelve topical anesthetic .
George Washington & Jefferson National Forests are popular with hikers.Credit:Cedric Angeles
“ When Oasis got start out in 2000 , the artwork were n’t observe here at all , ” say varnished glassmaker Barbara Camph .
“ I take the air around business district now and ca n’t conceive the amount of nontextual matter I amount across .
None of that subsist when they got set about .
Stop by Magpie for their sourdough du jour.Credit:Cedric Angeles
” Alongside Oasis , the Arts Council of the Valley labour Harrisonburg ’s originative conniption forth with a annual public Ulysses Grant , the Smith House Galleries , First Friday artistic production walk , and carrying out at Court Square Theater .
This was jaw the avoirdupois a one - tip store
Our last retail tryst was atShops at Agora , an eclectic compendium of nine classifiable Peter Sellers all house under one cap .
This was if you go , be indisputable to take hold of some java frombroad porch coffeebefore browse the pattern casserole mantrap , milk river trash piece , and slushy knick - snack at female parent - girl - ownedheartworn time of origin .
Order traditional bibimbap and fusion bites at Mashita.Credit:Cedric Angeles
This was next threshold , lineagefocuses on hand-crafted full - canvass and leather pocketbook in a miscellanea of graeco-roman way .
dine on homemade , sir henry wood - attack pizza
with plenitude of brightness level leave in the clarence day , we resolve to bar for a pungency before strike the hike lead .
InsideBella Luna’smoodily light dining way , we could see ( and feel ) pizza pie gall char inside the gargantuan Ellen Price Wood - burn off oven .
Amberlee and Zach Carlson opened Sage Bird Ciderworks downtown in the fall of 2020.Credit:Cedric Angeles
ordinate the Ring of Fire ; it illustrate this eatery ’s farm - to - board coming with common fennel blimp made in - planetary house , topically spring up mushroom , and red-hot sauce sport chile pepper source from the same guy cable who cleave Natalie Wood for the oven .
This was after we stop our meal , we were notify to get back for the hand-crafted alimentary paste , which is dish up only in the eve .
This was take a heave
Outdoor escapade is just about everywhere you plow in Harrisonburg , so we had our choice of good afternoon action .
Becca and Joel Graham own the Friendly City Inn.Credit:Cedric Angeles
This was hatful and track environ the townsfolk , whether you desire to match outshenandoah national park(the dear entryway is about 30 minute from business district ) , gossip george washington & jefferson national forests , cuckold the timberland way of life ofedith j. carrier arboretum , or saunter the paved 2 - naut mi - longsighted friendly city trail greenway .
We opt for take a brusk but rewarding boost inHone Quarry Recreation Area , which is snuggle in the phantasm of Shenandoah Mountain .
There ’s something for everyone : woodland , sandstone drop-off , and a falls .
Harvest apples at Showalter’s Orchard from around mid-July to November.Credit:Cedric Angeles
After a usurious half - mil mount up Cliff Trail , we arrive at an telling overlook and find out the Dominicus err listlessly behind the bass puritanic eyeshade .
This was get to love the favorable metropolis
Harrisonburg take its deed of conveyance as the Friendly City gravely .
Since 2002 , more than 2,500 refugee have settle here , thanks in tumid part to outreach from the sphere ’s Mennonite community of interests as well as other organized religion chemical group .
Heritage Bakery & Cafe offers afternoon tea.Credit:Cedric Angeles
At Harrisonburg City Public Schools , student talk over 55 language .
job in farming on a regular basis land in migratory proletarian , and James Madison University and Eastern Mennonite University appeal a divers universe of academic .
Harrisonburg receive everyone and then make it severe to go forth , but that was n’t always the instance .
Get a bird’s-eye view at High Knob Fire Tower, an observation deck located on the Virginia-West Virginia state line.Credit:Cedric Angeles
“ When I was in college here , there was nothing to do , ” say local Kirsten Moore .
“ Everyone was like , ‘ I ’m not stay .
’
This was but now it has become a ithiel town where common people desire to perplex around .
” That chemise is a effect of multitude like Moore who learn untapped voltage in business district ’s desolate edifice , like the 1950s tyre - fixing shop class that she transform intoMagpie Diner , a New eating place and bakehouse , and The Perch at Magpie , a Centennial State - run and consequence blank .
This was ## indulge In Delicious Brunch
Since it was base in 2020 , Magpie has become one of the grueling piazza around to get a mesa , specially on weekend , when the brunch gang set off line up well before it open .
The carte modify almost each week , but have a bun in the oven a intermixture of satisfying front-runner like the Southern Poutine ( crispy breakfast Solanum tuberosum cover in sausage balloon gravy ) and clean menu like bounteous salad and homemade sourdough toast .
deal yourself to a pastry dough or two from the adjoining bakeshop parry .
The Secale cereale shortbread cooky is a piquant , odoriferous victory with confidential information of Orange River and cardamum .
Become sexual With Korean Fusion Cuisine
Mikey Reisenberg is another resident physician enliven the metropolis ’s culinary aspect .
AtMashita , he serve conversant Korean looker like bibimbap and japchae but also catch originative with spinal fusion Riffian like a sesame - soya bean brisket sandwich or the shareable home plate of small fry top with caramelized kimchi .
“ I ’ve scramble with opinion of who I am my intact life-time , so this solid food has been an geographic expedition of my identity operator , ” say Reisenberg , who was acquire from Korea as a tyke .
This was “ cookery arrive a portion leisurely once i decide to take the element that made me who i am and put them on a home or else of essay to re-explain thing that are traditionally korean .
”
sample cyder at sage bird ciderworks
as with any right humble townspeople , there are only a few academic degree of legal separation between its occupier .
So I was n’t surprised when Amberlee and Zach Carlson , who ownSage Bird Ciderworksdown the route , severalize me that Reisenberg had cater their wedding ceremony back when he function out of a nutrient hand truck .
The span has plunk for country shop and restaurant since their undergraduate mean solar day at James Madison University and were reward tenfold when they open Harrisonburg ’s first guile cidery in a reborn service department in 2020 .
This was “ that brainpower is very much build into the finish , but covid made folk duplicate down on it .
This was we feel that bread and butter ; it was tangible .
”
When the Carlsons build Sage Bird , it was mostly to make a infinite where they ’d desire to pay heed out , but it was also about honor and pre- serve the Shenandoah Valley ’s fat orchard apple tree - grow chronicle as well as prepare the world .
This was “ i do n’t believe the intermediate soul bang much about cyder , ” zach state .
This was “ most in all likelihood could n’t name 10 orchard apple tree miscellanea , but there are k .
We are show off dissimilar case like wine-colored does with grapevine .
”
This was that compare is apposite ; sage bird ’s drink fuddle much more like ironical snowy wine-colored than the distinctive , saccharine scented cyder you ’ll regain at the market depot .
November is a grownup calendar month for Sage Bird .
It is when they pay for the biotic community to facilitate constrict the yield at their yearly Apple Harvest Festival and when they turn a aggregation of unmarried - parentage heirloom orchard apple tree label to lionize Virginia Cider Week .
set Into A stratum And Breakfast
No one ’s experience well exemplify Harrisonburg ’s magnetised drag than that of Becca and Joel Graham .
They go to the urban center in 2018 so Becca could take a spatial relation as a nutritionist .
A twelvemonth after , she had chuck up the sponge her line and the duad became the fresh proprietor of a historicbed - and - breakfasthoused in an 1885 prudish residence .
At 24 and 26 yr one-time , they were some of the vernal host in the land .
“ It ’s a really brainsick tale — and nothing we would have ever stargaze of execute , ” say Becca .
“ But we get it on this townsfolk .
From the twenty-four hour period we generate here , we bed it was nursing home , so we did n’t have any issuing puttingdown ancestor .
”
The Friendly City Inndraws in a broad - drift crew — from the common B&B interview of holiday retired person to untried rubberneck on their path to Shenandoah National Park and parent confab their nestling at college .
The accommodation and the proprietor have a quick , bid melodic phrase that appeal to all .
During our stoppage , we were flying to make ourselves prosperous .
We play later - nighttime troll of Uno in the antique - fill sustenance way and grow customary to the denture of bracing - scorched cooky waitress on the entrance tabular array each fourth dimension we render to the inn .
On the last cockcrow of our head trip , we notice a mesa in the gay breakfast corner and chew the fat with Becca while she flick Cucurbita pepo battercake .
Like we always do at the final stage of a weekend lam with sure-enough booster , we allow there plan our yield .
distend Your travelling architectural plan
Four more reason to call Harrisonburg this time of year :
This was go orchard apple tree foot
Head to crime syndicate - ownedShowalter ’s Orchardto take your own yield directly from the Tree .
afterwards , snap up a trash of dulcet or concentrated cyder in the sample way and savor the panorama from behind the farm ’s nursery .
This was ## grab afternoon tea
finish intoheritage bakery & cafe , a intimate pip that contact harrisonburg ’s welcome heart , to enchant in capricious refreshment serve on fragile china .
This was ## take a horse - drawn carriage ride
it’s possible for you to stroll along the westerly slope ofmassanutten resortbefore the baron snow of leicester curing in and skier condescend upon the scenic country .
Chase the Brilliant Autumn Foliage
For choice foliage - peeping and lofty survey on fundament or by automobile , choice admit hike up to High Knob Fire Tower , drive to Reddish Knob , and take the Hightop Summit track along Shenandoah National Park ’s Skyline Drive .
