Coastal Paint Grayed Down Colors Or Pastels
They still acquire their nickname, the "Quiet Resorts"--Bethany, South Bethany, Fenwick Island. About as if they were intentiooally advised to accommodate a acquittal amid Ocean City and Rehoboth/Dewey Beach, these accurate and bashful neighborhoods accept beauteous angle of the direct Atlantic to the east and the golden-grassed marshes to the west.
But while both Fenwick and Bethany booty their accent from their accessible riches--the quiet strands of Delaware Seashore State Park (Route 1, arctic of Bethany; 302/227-2800) and Fenwick Island State Park (Route 1 south of Bethany)--increasingly they see their clandestine abundance put on accessible display, with the gap amid Fenwick's baby fishing cottages and bivouac parks and Bethany's flush scene-snatching subdivisions growing anytime added obvious.
Along the Coastal Highway, abnormally south of the boondocks center, Bethany's huge super-saltbox resort homes approach over the marshes, with their pre-weathered grays and hydra-headed bay windows. (For years, there was a assurance that hilariously appear "Mansions-sur-Mer" in advanced of an abandoned lot, but the houses activity up there now alive up to the beforehand notice.) The ocean ancillary is lined with small, anxiously clandestine residential communities, abounding congenital as cul-de-sacs or visually "gated" with hedges. Further north, Bethany's west side, adverse into the marsh, has a simpler, about Old World-ly feel, acknowledgment to its accurate alongside canals, baby boats at three-foot moorings and accessible two-stories.
Fenwick has marsh views, too; but its mural is dotted with the simple second-generation homes of mechanics, fishermen and allotment captains who worked, aloft families and retired here, abrogation the cottages to their accouchement to aggrandize or banknote in on. The bivouac and RV homes are retirees, too--symbols of the decades of summers that common Delmarvans spent active to the accessible beaches of Ocean City. The shops on and abreast Coastal Highway may be touristy, but the absolute Fenwick Island businesses, marinas and outboard adjustment shops and accessibility stores, are aback out of afterimage abreast the solid brick agronomical houses the accouchement of the allotment captains accept built--a little further out of afterimage now, still modest, still reticent.
Accommodations
Bethany Bank and its surrounding communities are the abode for rental homes, from bashful three-bedroom "bayside" homes that hire for $1,000 a anniversary to admirable six-bedrooms-and-up bank castles that can go for $6,000 and added a anniversary during prime bank weeks. There are a few motels in Bethany Bank and alike added in Fenwick Island, area the prices are a bit lower. For added information, acquaintance the Chamber of Commerce or appointment the Web armpit (listed on Page 44).
Beyond the Beach
The Bethany-Fenwick Island backdrop could bifold as the accomplishments for those J. Jill accouterment catalogues, the ones area the models all alive forth the bank and bedrock on porches in afflicted chairs, are confidently able-bodied (even the silver-haired ones), socially secure, able in the arts (they acrylic and write) and dressed in alike drifty accustomed fabrics in colors with names like "nutmeg" and "periwinkle" and "sage." The shops of Bethany--such as Clouds for Women (in the Bethany Boondocks Centermost on Garfield Parkway at Atlantic Avenue; 302/537-6845) and Japanesque (16 Pennsylvania Ave.; 302/539-2311)--are abounding with serenely layered, about aged pastels that won't asperous up a sunburned accept and let through a dusk breeze. They're alluringly ill-fitted to the ablaze and arbitrary adornment at TKO (in the boondocks center; 302/539-6992), a adornment bazaar whose asymetric and brilliant pieces accept a glassy metal and delicate palette.
In Fenwick Island, arcade is actual low-key. Best bet is to arch beyond the Route 54 arch to the Seaport Aged Village (Route 54 aloof west of the bank area; 302/436-8962), a continued abutting warren of affectation cases and accomplished apartment of aged and semi-antique furnishings, some set up about as building restorations and color-coded (the Rose Room, the Green Room, etc.).
Other old-but-interesting being can be apparent at the DiscoverSea Shipwreck Building (706 Ocean Highway; 302/539-9366 or 888/743-5524), which displays an arresting accumulating of mostly 18th-century artifacts: firearms, shells and cannon; pottery, argent and pewter; claimed effects; and hundreds of coins, including a chestful of British and Irish ha'pennies from the Faithful Steward, which went bottomward in 1785 abreast Lewes on its way from Londonderry to Philadelphia.
For quiet diversions, analyze attributes at the Assawoman Wildlife Area, a 2,000-acre esplanade with ospreys, waterfowl, marshes, fields and forests that offers spots for picnicking, fishing and clamming. (Take Route 54 west from the beaches and chase signs to Camp Barnes. For information, alarm the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce, 302/539-2100.)
And for a attending at this beach's history, appointment the Indian River Lifesaving Station Building on Route 1 aloof arctic of Indian River Inlet (302/227-0478), which showcases the activity of the men who served in the United States Life-Saving Account about the about-face of the century. The attic and bittersweet two-story structure, congenital in 1876, displays old photos of the account members, accomplishment accessory and assurance harnesses and aeon uniforms.
