We just returned home from a vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia. Williamsburg is a lengthy drive from our house, but it's still short enough to do in one day.
Visiting Colonial Williamsburg is a great way to sneak a little bit of education into your vacation. My kids have now both learned about the settlement at Jamestown and the birth of the United States, so Colonial Williamsburg (which is what you see in the picture above) now has some significance for them.
There are lots of short, educational demonstrations and talks you can see in Colonial Williamsburg, and it's a beautiful place to look at as well. There are dozens of refurbished colonial buildings, some of which are shops of various sorts, and some of which are outfitted as if people of that day still lived there...
As an occasional photographer, I loved this scenery. I tried not to linger too long to keep the kids from getting bored, but I found that if I mixed a bit of this...
with a bit of this...
...they did just fine.
If your kids are like my kids, they will find something they want to buy, even if it's at "sort-of" historically accurate places such as this:
And then of course, there are the conventional souvenir shops, where you can buy things like this:
Don't worry - he didn't shoot his eye out - it just looks like a real gun.
Although, if you cut the string on the cork of this pop gun (out of sheer frustration, due to SOMEONE popping it INCESSANTLY), you could see how it might have the potential to shoot someone's eye out...
Don't ask me how I know this information.
We visited the church some of our founding fathers attended while they worried about the fate of the colonies. One of the guides informed us that you can still attend mass here. I believe she said it is the oldest continuously attended church in the nation.
And, if you're a bacon lover, like my daughter, you'll probably appreciate this plaque in the church vestibule.
If you're interested in weaponry, be sure to visit the armory.
And visit nearby Yorktown, where you can see a canon fired just a few yards away.
It is my estimation that you can't spend a whole week doing this stuff, but don't let that deter you from visiting. There are lots of other things to do in Williamsburg.
More in my next post!
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