Seniors Head for Fairfax County, Virginia…

…and here’s why: seniors, it’s for a visit to Vienna, a town ranked third by CNN/Money and Money magazine on its list of the 100 best places to live in the United States.

Vienna…brings back memories of my daughter’s and my trip to Vienna, Austria a few years ago. What a neat trip that was!

In addition to highly ranked public schools, this town of 16,000 includes a downtown with many small businesses, a Washington Metro station,  and a portion of the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park, with a hiker/biker trail cutting through the center of town.

 Seniors Learn Interesting History

In 1754, prominent soldier and landowner Colonel Charles Broadwater settled within the town boundaries. Broadwater’s son-in-law, John Hunter built the first recorded house there in 1767, naming it Ayr Hill, recalling his birthplace, Ayr, Scotland.

That name was subsequently applied to the tiny, developing community. The name of the town was changed in the 1850s, when a doctor named William Hendrick settled there on the condition that the town would rename itself after his hometown, Phelps, New York, then known as Vienna.

Senior travelers will find Vienna just south of the Potomac River and west of Washington D.C. Fabulous high-end shopping and dining can be found at Fairfax Square, a shopper’s heaven that includes Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton and Morton’s Steakhouse. The steakhouse looks good to me.

Seniors Find A ‘Safest City’

Senior visitors can find a performance of their choosing at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. And then there’s Meadowlark Botanical Garden that folks say is “utterly enchanting”. This Master Gardener would first head for the Garden.

FYI… Vienna was recently named one of the 15 safest places in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Seniors, set your GPS for Vienna and explore all  that this city has to offer. -jeb