I have seen so much on the forum about New Bern that my wife and I decided to drive up for a visit today.
At first we thought is was the weekend for
MUMfest, but as soon as we saw there was no traffic and plenty of parking, we figured out that we had the dates wrong.
A young lady in shop where Pepsi was born confirmed MUMfest is in October which is a good thing considering how warm it was today.
We ate at Flounders Restaurant which is at the intersection of Routes 70 & 17. The food was tasty, reasonably priced, but the service while very good was a little slow.
From what we have read you can walk the grounds of Tryon Palace for free during MUMfest weekend. So we'll have to take another trip up to New Bern or Oct 13 o14 to catch the festival.
Here are
the pictures of the beautiful downtown area.
New Bern has a very nice downtown, but there are not a tremendous number of shops. Unless we missed them, I only saw two or three restaurants. The farmers market was closed today.
The convention center and waterfront park area are really nice.
We did drive into the Taberna neighborhood on our way to Morehead City.
The housing seemed nice and the prices were also reasonable but I have no idea about the homeowners' fees or taxes.
I don't know New Bern but I am sure there is plenty to do there. From the shopping malls we passed coming into town, there is no shortage of normal mall stores.
After New Bern we went to Fort Macon State Park which is probably the closest ocean beach with lots of parking. It took a while to get there because of the stoplights on Route 70.
I would be curious as to where New Bern folks head to the beach when they want to cool off.
Below is a picture from Fort Macon.
-David Sobotta
http://coastalnc.org/inmysights (broken link)