Wanting to wake up in wine country ready to get to some serious tasting, me and the almost-husband (AH) decided to head down to the Laurel Highlands after work on Friday. With our reservation confirmed at the gloriously historic Summit Inn Resort and armed with the news that the dining room closed at 9pm, we planned to hit the road by 7. This gave me enough time to properly pack. For a weekend devoted to wine tasting I reasoned I really only needed five things: sundresses, sunglasses, sunhat, and sunscreen. Oh, and a swimsuit for the indoor and outdoor pools and jacuzzi at the Summit. Fortunately, I decided to throw in some jeans and a sweater at the last minute because sadly the weather did not cooperate with my packing plan. Leaving by 7 allowed me to attend my Friday workout class to prepare for a weekend devoted mostly to eating and drinking.
Category Archives: Just Outside of Pittsburgh
Get out of town!
I prefer the dry whites
As with many Pittsburghers, I fled the city for the weekend in the hopes that when I returned I would find the city free of riot police and jersey barriers and navel-gazing news coverage. I may not have much trouble crossing a river to get to another neighborhood but I do rarely make it beyond the City Limits. I need to be reminded of the rich amenities and recreation just beyond. So how about a trip through wine country? And no, I did not fly to Napa or visit the Finger Lakes region. This weekend I was tipsily traipsing through the Southwest Passage Wine Trail and blissing out in one of Western PA’s greatest assets, the Laurel Highlands. The region (through the PA Winery Association) is working on highlighting the wineries as a great asset to grow the tourism industry and as part of that initiative invited IheartPgh to visit, all expenses paid! Interested in purchasing wine for my upcoming nuptials I quickly signed on to report from the grape-soaked trenches.
Here is a link to the Google map I made of the wineries and restaurants I visited, which I’ll be writing about throughout the week!
View Southwest Passage Wine Trail in a larger map
3rd Annual Friends of Dormont Pool Pub Tour
Image via Wikipedia
Dormont is a neighborhood that is just south of Pittsburgh and it is home to an enormous, amazing and historic swimming pool which is supported by a community with a huge heart that has been working like crazy to keep the pool afloat (I couldn’t resist).
Friends of Dormont Pool will be hosting their 3rd Annual Pub Tour this weekend
When: Saturday, April 25th, 2009 from 7:00 PM – 12:00 Midnight
Where: Local venues in Dormont.
We’re anticipating all 12 venues will participate this year!
Cost: T-shirts will be sold to support the Dormont Pool at a cost of $15.00
Check out the pool history…
The Dormont Pool dates back to 1920, when Andrew Philp used rocks to dam a creek to make a wading pool. In 1922, the borough spent $6,851 to create a larger dam for a swimming area and an ice skating rink. At the same time they also built a small wooden bath house. The pool was made to give people the feeling of being in the tropics.
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Dormont Pool has survived the Great Depression, World War II, and has opened every season. It was declared a Historic Landmark in 2002.
Dormont Pool is #97 on the Pittsburgh Bucket List – what is on your Pittsburgh bucket list?
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Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Cities in between – GLUE Conference Day 1
Image via Wikipedia
I am in Milwaukee for the 2nd annual GLUE conference. GLUE stands for Great Lakes Urban Exchange – which is a project that was started 2 years ago by Pittsburgh’s Abby Wilson and Sarah Szurpicki of Detroit. The website GLUEspace.org has become a portal for anyone to share information about cities in the Great Lakes watershed. IheartPGH has been a fan of GLUE from the beginning (see the post from April 2008) and thanks to GLUE both great lakes city t-shirts from both IheartPGH and STL-Style made the New York Times last summer.
You can read more about the 2009 GLUE Conference here.
I just wanted to post a quick summary with some links from the first day of the conference.
We started with a tour of Growing Power, Inc. which is an urban farm in Milwaukee that has become a model and a training facility for urban agriculture around the country. They are doing some amazing work here growing food (and worms) in green houses.
We then headed over to Sprecher Brewery for dinner – which included salad made with greens from Growing Power.
The speakers after dinner were really interesting
- Willie Hines Jr. is the president of Milwaukee Commons Council, he spoke about his experiences moving back to Milwakuee, working in business and government and running for office
- Carol Coletta is president and CEO of CEO’s for Cities – a non profit organization that advocates for cities. Carol has lots of information and facts about cities and how to improve cities. The CEO’s for Cities websites has lots of resources for anyone interested in cities. (Carol was one of the panelists at the first CityLive PGH event back in Sept. 2007)
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Weihnachtsmarkt this weekend is Historic Harmony
Image via WikipediaWeihnachtsmarket is German for Christmas Market. Historic Harmony village, which is about a 25 minute drive north of Pittsburgh, is hosting their annual Christmas Market this weekend (Nov. 15-16, 2008).
Now it has been a few years since I took the tour of the Harmony Museum but here is what I remember about Harmony – The historic Harmony Village is located on the site of the Harmony Colony – which was establised in 1800, the harmonists later moved to Indiana and back to Western, PA. The Harmonists were celibate and eventually they all died.
- Father Christmas will be there for the kids
- German songs
- dancing from the Teutonia Mannerchor (a German club in Pittsburgh).
- dulcimer players
- holiday gifts
- authentic German goods from Little Germany of Berks County
A German Christmas Market
Harmony, PA
Saturday, November 15, 11-7
Sunday, November 16, Noon-4
Click here for more info on the market.
While you are there stop by the Bottle Brush Gallery – a new art gallery and gift shop in downtown Harmony that some friends of mine opened last month. This weekend is the opening of a new show – water color paintings from Maria Kovalenko Leysens.
