Charlottesville -- A Good Day Trip

Two hours west and a little south from the general DC commuting area rests Charlottesville, Virginia; a small metropolitan area with a lot to offer. I recently drove with some friends down to this location, and it had so much for us to do, we spent a whole day there. We tasted some wine, saw Monticello, and ate dinner in downtown Charlottesville. Every activity was robustly enjoyed.

We drove down mainly to see Monticello, the house and grounds of Thomas Jefferson. Upon arriving, we were told that our tour would leave a few hours later. We reviewed our options for the meantime: tours of the grounds which required a lot of walking, or the Thomas Jefferson winery down the road. We decided to go to the wine tasting. When we got there, we first saw a deck full of picnic tables where people could sit and consume a bottle of wine, which is what many people were doing. We were hungry, so a friend took his cooler from the trunk and put it on a picnic table for when we were ready.

In the wine tasting area, we could pay $5 to taste roughly 15 wines. We each got a ticket, and were given a chance to taste sweet and dry white and a variety of red wines that were produced and bottled right there at Thomas Jefferson winery. We enjoyed this, and ultimately selected a red wine to drink with our food on the deck. For the rest of the time that we had, we ate and drank on the deck and enjoyed pleasant conversation.

Then we made it back to Monticello in no time, and took the tour of Jefferson’s house. In case you forgot or didn’t know, the house and tour guide remind you of what an academic and intellectual Jefferson was. He was also a very skilled architect, he designed and built the house himself, and after he was Ambassador to France, he returned to Charlottesville and renovated the house himself, based upon architectural concepts that he appreciated in Europe. His house included a wine pulley for a slave to send wine from the basement up to the tea room, an underground passage, a dome, and skylights.

Finally, before returning home, we stopped in downtown Charlottesville for dinner at an Italian restaurant and then bought a series of coffee drinks for the ride home.

For people living in the Washington DC area who would like a pleasant day trip, Charlottesville has a lot to offer. For me, during the Cherry Blossom Festival, it was key to get out of the downtown DC area on Saturday. So we went down to Charlottesville, and we agreed that we enjoyed the trip much more than we expected to. I recommend this trip to any residents in the DC area, especially in the Spring and Summer. Some good websites to look at are:

http://www.monticello.org/

http://www.monticellowinetrail.com/

http://www.pursuecharlottesville.com/diningIndex.php