We got back last night from a vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia. We had a wonderful time. We spetnt 3 1/2 days in Historic Williamsburg, a day and a half in the Jamestown Settlement, and a half a day in the Yorktown Victory Center.
The girls have the whole week of Thanksgiving off from school this year. Since Tacie can't have any unexcused absences from school (she'd get a zero for anything missed those days), we do all our traveling during the school holidays and this week-long holiday gave us the opportunity to travel a little further from home.
We drove up to Williamsburg on Saturday, the 22nd and stayed for the whole week at the Historic Powhatan Resort. It was a perfect location, centered between Williamsburg and Jamestown - only a couple of miles from each. We bought week-long passes so we could go to any of the historic venues in the area as much as we wanted all week long.
Sunday and Monday we spent in the Williamsburg. It was chilly and we all wore our warmest clothes but it was a little chillier than we were used to! After Williamsburg closed, we stopped at the outlet mall near there and bought long underwear, warmer gloves, and turtle neck shirts.
Williamsburg - We really enjoyed all of the town. It has been recreated to what it looked like just before the Revolution. We spent Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning trying to see everything! We strolled through the 18th century houses and shops. We spoke with the townspeople (all in character and in costume) about what life was like for them. We ate some good food at the taverns.
Tuesday, we started the day at the Yankee Candle factory store. The girls and I got to dip candles. It is a huge mall-like store, with all the candles you could hope for plus toys, Christmas decorations, gifts, Santa in his sleigh, and a room where it really snows!
Jamestown - After lunch Tuesday, we headed for the Jamestown Settlement. The actual Jamestown is an ongoing archaeological dig but nearby, there is a huge museum and living museum to see. First of all, the galleries are huge and wonderful. There are life-size dioramas depicting the Powhatan native village, an English town, and an African village. Then there is information on the boats, and what life was like after all three groups came to Jamestown.
Outdoors is the living museum, built to be just it was here in 1607 with the founding of the English colony. We took a 90 minute tour but didn't have much time for any more the first day. We came back again on Thanksgiving Day when they had a cooking demonstration at each of the three areas outside - Powhatan village, Jamestown fort, and waterfront ships. The museum has built dwellings, buildings, and ships that are like the people built from the same materials and techniques they would have had available in 1607.
First you come to the Powhatan village. There are costumed interpreters who told us about what life was like before the English settlers came. They were roasting a duck over the fire, cooking squash soup in clay pots in the coals, and corn cakes in the ashes. The dwellings are filled with the furniture and tools the Powhatans would have owned.
In the next section of the park, is a whole recreated fort like the English built. It is full-sized with a number of typical buildings, again built as they would have been in 1607. There were houses, barracks, storerooms, a smithy, and a church. It was just like stepping back into the 17th century. Here they were butchering a pig, making sausage, and salt pork. They were baking pies and demonstrating muskets. The kids liked the chickens and rooster. There was a set of armor that Talia got to try on!
Beyond the fort, was the waterfront with 3 fully functioning ships that are the same size and configurations of the three ships that first came to Jamestown! The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the .... They were colorful and had officers and seamen on them to explain how things worked. There was an artillery demonstration on the dock that shook everyone for miles, I'm sure.
Yorktown - Yorktown is of the same type of living museum as Williamsburg and Jamestown but on a much smaller scale and really depicting life during and after the Revolutionary war. Here a man demonstrated an army "kitchen". There were more musket demonstrations. There was a battlefield surgeon with his implements and army tents. The museum here was good too but much smaller than at Jamestown. There was a special area just for kids to try on costumes.
Outside, they have a recreated farm from 1780, where most of the patriots would have gone home to. There were more things to try out and people to speak to from this time period.
We had a wonderful trip and there is more to do for the next time we go back - the plantations, the folk art museum in Williamsburg, Monticello not too far away.
