The Hunt Country Run

An hour west of the capital the suburbs surrender and the plank fences begin, and the country beyond them has been organized around the horse since colonial Virginia. This route runs west out of Washington through Leesburg to Middleburg, wants two nights, and is best in October, when the hunt season opens and the hills color up, or in spring, when the foals are in the fields and the point-to-point races run.

Leave the city on a Friday afternoon by the Georgetown Pike rather than the highway, which adds twenty minutes and subtracts the century. The road follows the Potomac past the great falls, worth the short stop to watch the river tear through its gorge, and delivers you into Loudoun County already adjusted to the country's pace.

Spend the first night in the courthouse town at the gateway of the hunt country, where the stone buildings on the old streets date to the seventeen hundreds and the courthouse green has seen everything since. The town makes the country's supply stop, a proper dinner downtown, a morning browse of the antique rooms, and the wineries beginning at the town line, of which the county now has dozens. Choose one with a view of the Blue Ridge for the afternoon.

End in the capital of the hunt country, a stone village of a few blocks that has been feeding foxhunters since 1728 and dresses accordingly, tack shops and taverns and shop windows full of riding boots. Stay at the old inn at the center of the village, walk the whole town in twenty minutes, and drive the lanes west of it slowly at golden hour, when the fences and the horses and the long light arrange themselves without any help. If a point-to-point or a steeplechase falls on your dates, go, with a picnic, as the locals have for a century. The horses set the calendar here, and the calendar has no interest in changing.