From Front Royal over the Skylinedrive to Charlottesville - What a Ride!

Virginia, or the “Mother of Presidents”, is #19 on our list of visited states. Although we already touched it when we saw Arlington Cemetery, we actually never set foot on Virginian ground until today.

“Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you, away, you rolling river…”

The Shenandoah River winds through a fertile valley between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Allegheny Mountains. The valley was of strategic importance during the Civil War, because the Confederate troops got their supplies delivered through it.

A handful of people recommended the Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park as worth seeing. Especially Brenda R.’s friend took the time to elaborate about it in order to make our mouths water to see it. Also the Blue Ridge Parkway was described to us as a picturesque alternative to cross Virginia avoiding the Interstate highways. So we stayed in Front Royal for the night and started from there along the Skyline Drive.

Front Royal was once a crude station for rough and wild mountaineers and river travelers in the area who came into town looking for alcohol and women during the 18th century. Nowadays it is a small and sleepy town with some pretty shops (not open anymore when we arrived, and not yet open when we left), some of the usual hotels and motels and an exquisitely unfriendly USPS staff. But most importantly Front Royal is now the northern entry to the Skyline Drive and advertises the Skyline Caverns, which present mineral formations with white tops looking like sea urchins. We kind of forgot to visit them, so please google the Skyline Caverns.

The Skyline Drive is only 105 miles long, but with a speed limit of 35mph it takes a whole day to pass it. And for outdoorsy people, who actually park there car not only to step out and take a few pictures, but to hike through the woods, explore water falls, etc. a stay here can easily take two or three days.

And these are some of the pictures we took from some of the outlooks (half of them are closed for repair right now):

For those of you who like to hike and explore National Parks, there is a lot more to see. For people like us, who first of all don’t hike and second of all crossed the Alps a few dozen times, the Skyline Drive actually held no big surprises. It was beautiful and wonderfully calm, but we decided to skip the over 400 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway, because we didn’t expect more than what we already saw. Probably this was a bad decision and we will regret it some day, but we actually don’t think so.

We rather followed another recommendation and proceeded to the beautiful and charming city of Charlottesville. A real jewel with a Mediterranian lifestyle. But see for yourself.

Charlottesville was our target to be close to Monticello, which we visited the next day. Monticello was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia. There we are, another all-rounder in American politics… Jefferson designed the house himself and followed the neoclassical principles of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Situated on a hill within Jefferson’s estate the name Monticello (little mountain) was almost inevitable.

Monticello is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On arrival one is led to a modern visitor’s center including a theater showing a documentary about Thomas Jefferson, a permanent exhibition of things from Jefferson’s household and other memorabilia. Shuttle busses take those up the hill, who can’t or just won’t climb up themselves (guess, if we took the bus…).

We took the guided tour through the house (no photography allowed) and were impressed by the comprehensive knowledge of our guide and his beautiful southern accent.

After the house tour visitors are free to take a self guided tour of the basement. Here you find stables, the kitchen, wine and beer cellars, the ice house, etc.

Other tours are offered to visit the gardens, the living quarters of the slaves, etc. For more information visit www.monticello.org.

Even on a six-weeks trip time is scarce, and we wanted to reach Charlotte that day. So we took off and were on the road again!

Dieser Eintrag wurde am 2.9.2010 um 07:08 verfasst und befindet sich in The Mother of all Trips. Sie können alle Antworten zu diesem Eintrag über den Feed RSS 2.0 mitverfolgen. Hinterlassen Sie eine Antwort oder einen Trackback-Link zu Ihrer eigenen Homepage.