Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Recommendations and Tips for a Trip to Williamsburg:

1. If you are a history buff, you will need quite a few days here. There is historical Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown.

2. There are many fun shops like the Christmas Mouse and General Stour that are fun to go to.

3. We didn't do much of the historical site seeing. The only place we really toured was historical Jamestown. I am still debating with myself if we should have done the tour of historical Williamsburg. You don't need to pay to go, but you do if you want to go in most of the buildings. We didn't do it because it is a lot of money, but I think we will the next time we go. You miss quite a bit if you don't pay for the site seeing pass. For me, it wasn't so much about not seeing the insides of the buildings, though I do wish we had seen the Governors Mansion, but more about not getting all the historical tid bits from the tour guides.

4. There is a post office in historical Williamsburg. It also doubles as a store and this is where we purchased our one souvenir. The post office is actually a running post office and they still hand cancel the stamps there. Many people like to bring their Christmas cards there. One guy used to mail them a box of Christmas cards for them to hand cancel and send out each year. I find it fascinating. Maybe one year you receive a card sent from the historical Williamsburg post office. 

5. Jamestown is split up into two parts. There is the historical part which is $10 per person. It has a lot of history there so you can spend quite a few hours there. There is also the part of Jamestown, called Jamestown Settlement, that is set up with actors in a fake village so people can get the feel of what life was like back then. We did not do this because we didn't have any time left. But if you go with your kids, plan on taking them there. I forget how much it is, but I do know that it was more than $10 per person.

6. They have historical taverns that are still used as restaurants. Based on my research, they are fun to go to but a bit expensive. And you may need reservations to get in. If you ever go and want to have a historical eating experience, plan it ahead of time. I have never done this but I think it would be fun.

7. There are many ghost tours you can do. I do not know what the best one is, though I wish I did. We did  the mock witch trial. If you have any interest in that part of the history, I recommend it. It was so fun. It tied in perfectly with our honeymoon because Salem has a lot of witch trial history, which is one of the reasons we choose to do it over a ghost tour. I liked how they had actors for it but that they also gave the spectators (us) a chance to participate. They did a great job of bringing that time period to life.

8. Eat at SAL's by VICTOR. The guy that did our presentation recommend this restaurant so we decided to test it out. SO GOOD! It is authentic Italian food. I ordered the Pizza Caprese, even though I never order pizza at restaurants. And it did not let me down. It was one of the best Caprese pizzas I have ever had (Jon orders it a lot). It had so many tomatoes on it and so much flavor. This restaurant is not super expensive and you get fed well. My pizza was much bigger than I expected. I can't wait to go back the next time we are in Williamsburg.

9. If you love amusement parks, Bush Gardens is well known, much loved, and close by.

10. It is easy to make a day trip to the beach from Williamsburg.

1 comment:

  1. 6. Our choir trip senior year was Richmond/ Williamsburg. We did the tavern-dinner one night. I liked it. I will totally go with you! A weekend in the 'burg sounds really fun.

    7. We need to go on the Harper's Ferry Ghost Tour. I love it. Acutally, we just need to go there in general.. but you get the idea ;)

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