I love Richmond

I don’t know about anyone else, but I all too often find myself falling madly in love with cities or places. Currently I’m falling hard for Richmond. Luckily I currently live here.

Now before I moved to Richmond (aka RVA, River City “we mean business but we stay pretty”), I had the usual concerns about the former capital of the confederacy and having grown up the daughter of faculty in uber liberal University Town, VA was nervous that it would be a littttttle too conservative/stuck in the past for me. (We do have monuments to confederate soldiers up and down monument ave) Despite these concerns, I embraced the opportunity to attend grad school down south, as I was ready to leave Washington DC, a city I swoon for, but whose traffic makes me want to rage (and not just in the burbs of NOVA, I lived and worked in the district and it would take me 2 hours to get home on a city bus).

While graduate school has been a challenge, I am super happy the hubs and I relocated two hours south. For one thing, there is no traffic, rent is cheap and I can walk or bike anywhere I need to, but, in addition, Richmond has a whole slew of little shopping, eating, cultural luxuries that I previously did not expect to find. And because I am constantly stumbling across these things on a daily basis, I'm going to start posting them here, to help meeee keep track of my discoveries (and to maybe to try to convince some friends *cough, ahem* to consider moving here.

So with out further ado, here is my Tuesday installment of three of my Richmond discoveries.....

1. Ant Hill- located in Carytown these ladies carry gorgeous vintage jewelry, chandeliers and baubles. They have loads of antique costume jewelry and a large selection of antique diamond, emerald, sapphire and other precious stone rings. This store is actually very dear to my heart since we bought both my engagement and wedding ring here, for very reasonable prices. My original engagement ring was a band, which I absolutely loved, loved, loved. It is a 1930’s platinum set band. I really wanted to find another band style ring for my wedding ring, and it was also really important to me that it came from Ant Hill. Unfortunately we did not find any band rings that I liked, but we did find this 1930’s art deco white gold filigree styled ring, which I absolutely fell in love with. I was so enamored with this ring that I wore it out of the store and the original ring became my wedding ring. I have purchased lots of jewelry here in my time in Richmond, even my pearl earrings which I wore on my wedding day! I totally support and LOVE antique and reused metals and jewels for a reasons that could take up an entire post- thus the reason I love this store.

(the "engagement" ring)


(the original engagement ring)

I went by the other day and I am currently loving a little antique gold and black diamond ring that they have in the store, too expensive for JM and I, but it could be an awesome engagement ring for a funky bride to be.

2. Black Hand Coffee Shop- This place is right around the corner from our apartment and I love it for reasons other than I can roll out of bed on weekends and get a great cup of joe. For one, the roast their own beans right there in the shop, so it always smells like yummy coffee beans when you are in there. The shop is small, but the atmosphere is eclectic and friendly! Second, they make the greatest frothy designs on their cappuccinos, lattes, etc……….does starbucks do that? I don’t think so.

3. Libby Park- I absolutely love our new apartment in the museum district, but my first love will always be Church Hill and Libby Park. I miss running up the Franklin Street Hill, I miss sitting on benches gazing at the "view that named the city," I miss that tiny plot of green on the top of Church Hill...le sigh. Here are two of my favorite pictures from Libby Park


Kate in Richmond!




Winter In Richmond, Monument on Libby Hill


There now, that wasn't too bad! Aren't you starting to love Richmond too?
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