Our Itinerary (May 31, 2014 - June 2, 2014)
We spent a quick but highly enjoyable weekend in the area so I'm going to cover the highlights vs. breaking out our activities by day.
First of all, Bentley Manor Inn, our B&B for the weekend, was one of our best B&B experiences to date. The proprietors, Fred and Jane, are two of the sweetest people. Evan and I tend to keep to ourselves but we really did enjoy talking with them. They're good people and as an added bonus, they love cats!
Something special happened during our stay that's never happened to us before. We were the only guests at the B&B! As a result, we were upgraded to the biggest and nicest room (the bathroom had been recently renovated) free of charge. The breakfasts were delicious and not heavy or too big. The location of the B&B was also great. They're one street over from the main thoroughfare so they have the benefit of being near restaurants, shops, and Colonial Williamsburg but they also have the semblance of seclusion. I'd love to stay at the Bentley Manor Inn again. As we were driving home we even discussed making Williamsburg a default getaway a couple of times a year.
The last time I was in Williamsburg I was probably a sophomore in college so, a little over ten years ago. To his knowledge, Evan hadn't been there since the 4th grade. It wasn't exactly as I had remembered it. The last time I was there I spent more time visiting with a friend of mine who attended the College of William & Mary then I did in Colonial Williamsburg. Still, I distinctly remembered loving a sandwich I had at The Cheese Shop. Fortunately, Evan and I were able to reenact that experience. I got an equally memorable German salami and cheese sandwich with house dressing this time around. Evan indulged in a cheese plate and we also had some red wine. It's so rare that I "let my hair down" but I loved it. It was so relaxing not having anywhere to be and not having to feed a cat or scoop a litter box. I need to get tipsy more often!
The only other memorable meal we had was at College Delly. Every time we walked by the place it was packed with people so we figured it had to be good. I had a "red eye burger" off the brunch menu - what made it special was that it was topped with a fried egg, bacon, and pesto sauce. Evan got some cinnamon french toast.
Everything else we ate was inconsequential or not worthy of mention but I noticed many places worth trying. There are higher end restaurants and bistros as well as casual pancake houses and delis. I'm sure we'll add to our list of memorable meals on our next visit.
In terms of how we spent our time, we did some light window-shopping, walked all through Colonial Williamsburg without paying for admission into the historic buildings, participated in a "Ghosts Amongst Us" tour in Colonial Williamsburg, and visited Historic Jamestowne - not to be confused with Jamestown, a replica of the original settlement.
I partially regret not buying tickets to enter and tour the historic buildings and replicas in Colonial Williamsburg. The tickets seemed pricey, because they are, so it didn't seem worth it to me at the time. The main goal of the weekend was to relax and I don't think we would've accomplished that goal as successfully had we been running around going in and out of buildings. Still, it's something we may consider doing our next visit.
We did, fortunately, enter a few buildings as part of our Ghosts Amongst Us tour. I'm glad we did it but as might be expected, it was cheesy. The storytellers who were representative of the ghosts in their tales, were amateur actors. I even wondered if a couple or all of them were theater majors at the College. I was also disappointed that two out of the three stories were complete fabrications. Where's the fun in that?
Historic Jamestowne was the most history-heavy activity of the weekend. I'd highly recommend it to anyone visiting the area. We followed a guide and so we got as much out of the site as we could. If you go by yourself you're likely to miss the point. It's an excavation site and so most of what's been uncovered is in museums, otherwise it just looks like a lot of dirt. With the guide we saw the exact location (dirt mound) where the original Jamestowne church stood and Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married.
Our guide also pointed out that despite being the fifth attempt at colonization by the British it was the first one that stuck. He asked us to imagine what our world would be like had the Jamestowne experiment failed. At one point the colonizers attempted to return home but they were met and stopped by a supply ship from England. Had they not turned back and persevered, North America likely would've been colonized by the Spanish or some other European empire. We also learned a bit about how terrible the conditions were. Many colonizers died at the hands of the natives and disease but also, starvation. They've uncovered evidence that some of the colonizers were forced to resort to cannibalism.
One side of the Historic Triangle we skipped is Yorktown. Our Historic Jamestowne tickets also got us into Yorktown but wanting to keep our weekend relaxed and not action-packed we opted out. We might want to look into it the next time we're in the area.
Some photographic highlights:
Colonial Williamsburg
Historic Jamestowne
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