Hope y’all had a nice weekend! I decided to head down to Colonial Williamsburg, VA for a couple days with some friends. I haven’t spent much time down there before, so I thought it might be fun and I was on the hunt for Christmas treasures. We spent most of the day at the Colonial Williamsburg living history museum. Now, I’ve lived in Virginia for over a decade and I found this quite interesting but also very fun! Plus, the Christmas decorations added extra charm! The actors are extremely knowledgable and in each building that you enter you hear quite a bit about what life was like in the colony. Basically the entire colony has been reconstructed; often on the original building foundations that have been discovered. You can walk around the colony and enter buildings at your leisure. My favorite was the governor’s palace, but it was getting dark and since there are no lights inside the buildings it was very hard to see. I also thought that a lot of very interesting information was provided during the tour of the capitol building. There were even several young children who marched through town as part of a fife & drum band!
I would recommend Colonial Williamsburg to young and old alike, however I would definitely be sure to pack snacks and appropriate clothing. We were hungry and froze, but after dark here are a few bonfires that you can warm yourself by. There are a few restaurants in Merchant Square that are good, however there were very long waits. If you like to shop like I do then you will love milling around in the shops where many of the wares that are produced by the colony workers are also sold. Colonial Williamsburg is an interesting historical peek into life during this time period in Virginia and the experience will be sure to leave you with a greater appreciation for how our country began.
After touring the colony, we headed to Christmas Town at Busch Gardens. This was pretty cool and if you have small kids, they would absolutely love it! The park is decorated with over 6 million lights and most sections of the park have a different country for its theme. One section was called “Holiday Hills,” which ended up being my favorite because it was decorated with retro Christmas decorations and reminded me of my childhood. Does that mean I’m old if it was supposedly the “retro” section? Oh no…….! Just as with Colonial Williamsburg, I’d recommend making sure you have enough warm clothing with you as it does get very cold after the sun goes down. The park has several heated eating and entertainment areas, so it’s not hard to get warm if you need to. The rides that are open can be very chilly too. We took the train around part of the park and just about froze, but it was really fun because everyone was singing Christmas carols together!
Williamsburg is also home to The College of William & Mary and as such, you will find it to be a quaint college town where people stroll the square with their morning coffee while they walk their dogs and explore the farmer’s market. The city is fairly close to Virginia Beach and there is also a settlement at Jamestown to explore. I haven’t done that part yet, but hopefully once it warms up some I’ll get a chance to come back down to check it out and let y’all know how it is. In the summertime, I’ve heard that the water park Great Country U.S.A. and Busch Gardens are a blast! There is also a Great Wolf Lodge that many people stay at if they have children…I’ve heard there is an indoor water park there too.
Whether you’re from Virginia or not you will find Williamsburg relaxing and very interesting. I’ve been to a few living history museums around the area, but Williamsburg is the largest and most well done that I’ve been to so far. Hopefully this post will give you a few ideas if you were also planning on heading down this way.
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