Virginia & Washington Dc

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STATE OF VIRGINIA

Alexandria’s Farmers Market

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October 1999 trip to Virginia and Washington D.C. The trip to our Nation’s Birthplace began at the Dulles Washington D.C. Airport late in the afternoon.

Here we rented a car and immediately proceeded to get lost trying to find the road to Middleburg, where we had planned to spend the night at the Middleburg Country Inn. As a result we arrived quite late, so late in fact that the inn’s proprietor had retired for the night, leaving the key to our room in an envelope marked “The Schnells” at the unattended front desk. The room in this historic former Church Rectory buil in 1820 was quite charming with a wall-to-wall canopied bed. A fierce rainstorm overwhelmed us that firs night walking back from a cozy dinner at a local restaurant. On the following bright morning we strolled th town located in an area once surveyed by George Washington when it was known as Chinn’s Crossroads. After a lovely breakfast, we checked out and headed for the Shenandoah Valley along Skyline Drive, a spectacular route that winds 105 miles south from Front Royal to Waynesboro over the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Shenandoah National Park. En route we visited the Luray Caverns, where for millions of years water has seeped through the limestone and clay to create a wonderfully weird world of stalactite and stalagmite mineral formations. At Waynesboro we turned off and headed for Charlottesville, the epitome of Virginia’s Piedmont area. After checking in at the 200 South Street Inn, a former brothel restored to create an old fashioned inn in the historic district, we strolled this area at length and visited its pedestrian shopping mall stretch ing along six blocks of Main Street with fountains, outdoor restaurants and restored buildings lining a brickpaved street. Prior to visiting Jefferson’s Monticello the following day, we went to the west end of town to check out the University of Virginia, one of the nation’s most distinguished institutions of higher learning, which was founded and designed by Thomas Jefferson, who called himself its “father” in his own epitaph. Regarded by many as the “proudest achievement of American architecture in the past 200 years”,students vie for the rooms in the original pavilions that flank the lawn, a graduated expanse that flows down from the Rotunda, a half-scale replica of the Pantheon in Rome. We were thoroughly awed by this historical and dignified seat of higher learning. The Country Inn in Middleburg, Virginia

The Shenandoah Valley

200 South Street Inn, Charlottesville, Virginia

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello

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If Charlottesville is the epitome of Virginia’s Piedmont are

the major attraction in the Piedmont is nearby Monticello, the distinguished home that Thomas Jefferson designed and built for himself. Waiting in a long line to get in,we we greeted at the entrance by a guide about to take us on a tour of the home of our brilliant third president. This, his most famous of homes, is a masterpiece constructed over a period of 40 years,1769-1809. Typical of no single architectural style, it is characteristic of Jefferson, who ma a statement with every detail. The staircases were narrow and hidden because he considered them unsightly and a waste of space and his bedroom alcove was surprisingly modest. Monticello was a revolutionary structure, a neocl sical repudiation of the prevalent English Georgian style and the Colonial mentality behind it. It became the center Jefferson’s world where he retreated from the politics that he called his “duty”. A French visitor in 1782 reported that Jefferson was “Musician, Draftsman, Surveyor,Astronome Natural Philosopher, Jurist, and Statesman”. Surrounded by books and his inventions, Jefferson’s studies ranged from the rich classical past of Greece and Rome to scienc and architecture. His ideas were strongly influenced by th Enlightenment, the eighteenth century movement that em phasized reason and scientific inquiry. Monticello was ho not only to Jefferson and his large family, but also to as m ny as 135 slaves who worked the plantation’s four farms, constructed the house and outbuildings, and carried out household chores. We walked through the gardens and visited Jefferson’s grave site with an obelisk inscribed: Donna at the Vegetable Garden and Pavilion “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia”.

President Thomas Jefferson

West lawn and Monticello

Colonial Williamsburg

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From Monticello we drove 70 miles southeast to Richmond to spend the night here in the capital of the commonwealth, once also the capital of the Confederacy. Something about this most industrialized city in the south made us change our plans and instead compel us to drive another 50 miles making us arrive a day early in Colonial Williamsburg. After checking in at the Fort Magruder Inn, we went to the huge visitors center to buy our Patriot’s Passes for the most visited historic site in Virginia. Colonial Williamsburg is a convincing re-creation of the late 18 century city that was the capital of Virginia from 1699-1780, succeeding Jamestown. Although it has long ceased to be politically important, it now resembles itself in its era of glory and ranks as a jewel of the commonwealth. The restoration project, begun in 1926, was financed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and continues to this day, while being operated as a living museum. One can only tour the restored area on foot because all vehicular traffic is prohibited to preserve the Colonial atmosphere. 88 original 18 century structures have been meticulously restored. 225 period rooms have been furnished from a collection of more than 100,000 pieces of furniture, pottery, china, glass, silver, pewter, textiles, tools, and carpeting. All year long hundreds of costumed interpreters, wearing bonnets or three corner hats, rove and ride thru Two lads from the Fife and Drum Corps the streets. Dozens of skilled craftspersons, also in costume, their trades inside their workshops. on the mile long Duke of Gloucester St. demonstrate and explain Four taverns serve food and drink that approximate the fare of 200 years ago. We spent 3 days here soaking up the history of a time when in the capitol building the pre-revolutionary House of Burgesses challenged the royally appointed council that eventually arrived at the resolutions that led to rebellion and formation of American democracy from its English parliamentary roots. While here, we made a side trip to Yorktown, whose Main Street is an array of preserved 18th century buildings on a bluff overlooking the York River. We checked out the battlefield where combined American and French forces surrounded British troops under Lord Cornwallis in 1781, forcing an end to the American War of Independence. On the way back to Williamsburg, we stopped at Carters Grove, which examines slave dwellings and excavated 400 years of history. We toured the elegant mansion, built in 1755 by Carter Burwell, whose grand-father, “King” Carter was one of Virginia’s wealthiest landowners. It was extensively remodeled in 1919 to express its owners fascination with the past. Donna At the Bootmakers Shop in Colonial Williamsburg

Alexandria and Mount Vernon

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Leaving Williamsburg, we headed north towards Alexandria, where we planned to stay the rest of the

trip. On the way we stopped at Fredericksburg, which rivals Alexandria and Mount Vernon in its connections with the Washington family. The first president lived across the Rappahannock River from age six to 16, later he bought a house for his mother here. Intending to visit Mount Vernon on our way to Alexandria, it rained so hard by the time we got there, we put it off for another day and instead checked in Holiday Inn Old Town on King Street. Our lovely room overlooked Farmer’s Market Square, the nation’s oldest continually operating farmer’s market (1749), where George Washington sold the crops from his Mount Vernon farm. The city of Alexandria maintains an identity distinct from that of Wash-ington DC, across the Potomac. Established in 1749, the city dwarfed Georgetown - Washington’s oldest neighborhood - in the days before the revolution. Eager to inspect the remnants of its past in the historic district of Old Town, we set out on foot through cobblestone streets strewn with autumn leaves and marveled at the charm of the brick and shingled homes of early Alexandria, now the chic homes of the ci contemporary families. We peeked over brick walls into tranquil English gardens that beckoned us to qu moments and reflections of years gone by. We went inside Christ Church, unchanged since George Washington and Robert E. Lee worshiped here and stopped by Gadsby Tavern Museum, where General Washington reviewed his troops for the last time from the steps of the building. Trendy cafes offered an eclectic array of cuisine in this with-it town, one place in particular, la Madeleine, a French bistro, caught our fancy. Time came to drive the 8 miles southeast of Alexandria and visit George Washington’s house at Mount Vernon, probably the most visited historic house museum in the U.S., after the White House. We toured the Mansion, outbuildings and the Pioneer Farmer site. Washington considered himself a farmer, and al-though his farmhouse was a formal one, nothing disguised its working nature; in the ornate dining room, for example, guests ate at a simple trestle table assembled from bo-ards and sawhorses. We lounged on the famed long por-tico with its 8 columns facing east across the Potomac with a view matching the period authenticity of Mount Vernon’s interiors. The outbuildings, kitchen and stable, have been precisely restored and beyond them, George and Martha Washington were laid to rest in a tomb on the estate. Cobblestone street in Old Town Alexandria

George Washington

On Bowling Green of the Mount Vernon Mansion

Washington D.C.

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Time to explore our nation’s capital on the banks of the Potomac. Not wanting to be bothered with a car in the big city, we hopped the Metro in Alexandria to take us the few miles to Arlington, where we got on a bus touring the National Cemetery, containing the graves of 200,000 American soldiers. On this beautiful plot of land we saw the Kennedy graves and the changing of the guard at the Tomb of th Unknowns. Another day saw us catch a Tourmobile narrated tour bus going across the Potomac and getting off at the Lincoln Memorial, where the statue of Abraham Lincoln appears to be contemplating the broad expanse of the National Mall from a neoclassical structure reminiscent of the Par thenon. We ascended the imposing marble steps to read the immortal words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address carved on limestone walls. Back on the bus, we headed down the Mall on Constitution Ave and got off to have a look at the White House and as we walked the expanse of the Mall’s green with th nearly dozen diverse museums ringing it, we became aware that Washington, the world’s first plan-ned capital (by the brilliant French engineer Pierre L’Enfant) was indeed also one of its most beautiful. We skipped visiting the Washington Monument (it was being renovated) in favor of the National Air and Space Museum, where 23 galleries tell the story of aviation. Suspended from the ceiling like plast models in a child’s room, we spied the 1903 Wright Flyer and Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. Across the Mall we entered the National Gallery of Art which holds one of the world’s foremost collections of paintings, sculptures and graphics, thanks in large part to the generosity of financier Andrew Mellon. We enjoyed a lovely lunch here in the Sculpture Garden Cafe. No visit to Washington is complete without a visit to Capitol Hill and so after waiting in a long line, we entered the gleaming white capitol. A guided tour started beneath the Rotunda’s dome drawing attention to the huge paintings depicting U.S. historical events and ended in Statuary Hall, once the Legislative Chamber of the House of Representatives. By now exhausted and suffering from sensory overload, we declared ourselves ready to call it a day on a very educational trip to the lovely State of Virginia and Washington D.C. Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Donna at the Capitol