"Wow-ed" by Wilmington

We've seen everything coming up the intra-coastal waterway. There have been areas of heavy development, and pristine stretches of natural beauty. As we approached Wilmington, North Carolina the scenery changed yet again. First we stopped in the quaint and historic town of Southport, which is the southport on the Cape Fear river.
The Cape Fear inlet is one of the major deep water inlets for ocean going vessels in North Carolina, and Wilmington is the major port city. We have friends in Wilmington, Carla and Gordon Whitwell, and our friends Cindi and Mike Neumann (who are loopers), so we knew they all had great taste, but, we were not prepared to fall in love with this city the way we did!
Historic downtown Wilmington has been restored and it has great restaurants, creative stores, lots of theatre, and gorgeous old homes all within walking distance of the river front downtown. There's always something going on..Wilmington is home to the University of North Carolina Wilmington, which has 12,000 students (and a very pretty campus) It is the largest port in North Carolina. It also has the largest movie studio east of Los Angeles (Screen Gems) and while there Richard Geer, and Diane Lane were all over town making a movie..I saw Stanley Tucci walking down the board walk. Isn't that wierd???Who knew Wilmington was called "Hollywood East???? Also, Wilmington is within one half hour of 5 beautiful beaches, and lots of water between the Cape Fear, its tributaries, the ICW, and the ocean!!!Add to this the fact that Wilmington was just named one of the best places to retire and you start to get the picture of what's happening here...lots of buzz and quite frankly well deserved...we stayed over a week and hated to leave when we did...but the boat must go on