Williamsburg day 1
Today was overcast with occasional drizzle but no really hard rain. Kept things cool, at least.
The hotel is (as promised) only about a 10-minute walk from one end of the historic area, and also offers a decent (though crowded) breakfast. (Cereal, yogurt, bagels... none of that "we'll put out generic shrink-wrapped danishes and call it breakfast" stuff.)
Every morning from 10:30-ish to 12:30-ish there are a series of little vignettes held around one end of the historic area. When you enter you're given a little program so you know what you can see where and when. The theme for Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday is, "Collapse of the Royal Government" and the theme for Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday is, "Citizens at War." So, if you come two days in a row, you can see both the buildup to the war and the war itself.
The theme for Monday appears to be, "Two isn't evenly divisible into seven." (OK, technically it's "Building a Nation" but I suspect they just needed some stuff to fill in the extra day.) Some of the skits were pretty good -- the guy who did Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech was good, and the skit with a free black Baptist preacher and a slave from Africa was very good -- and some of them seemed more like something you'd see at the Renn Faire. I have a feeling that tomorrow's skits will be more thematically connected.
After George Washington gave his closing speech I poked around a few shops and hit the Cheese Shop for lunch. (Thanks sparkofcreation for the recommendation -- the shrimp salad sandwich was excellent.)
At 1:30 I went to the "Crystal Concert," which featured a variety of glass musical instruments, including the glass armonica, a set of glass English handbells (they sound slightly different from metal ones) and a glass violin. There was also a new instrument called a "crystal Baschet" which is made from glass and steel rods and reminds me of a cross between a piano and a cello. The concert was awesome. I'm tempted to go again Wednesday. We'll see.
After the concert I wandered a bit (I learned all about dovetail joints) and then hit the museum for a talk about menstruation in the 18th century. Really. Mostly women in that audience, with a smattering of (largely bored-looking) husbands and one embarrassed-looking teenage guy.
Afterwards I looked around the museums until they closed at 7. There are apparently technically two museums, one for folk art and one for decorative art, but they're housed in the same building so it's not really clear to me what the distinction is. (Bureaucratic, one assumes. Maybe they just needed to name it after two different donors.) They had a nice little collection of samplers, and if you ever want to see an enormous collection of coffee, tea, and chocolate utensils, you now know where to go.
I went to one of the no-reservations-required taverns for dinner. I got there just after 7 and they told me that it would take 25-30 minutes to seat me, but it was closer to 45-50, meaning I just had time to eat my soup and pay before I had to head out to catch my evening program. The waitress said something about coming back sometime when I had more time to spend. She still got her tip so I don't see why she should complain! They have common seating there meaning I was sharing a table with a family, who seemed nice.
The evening program I did was called, "Legends, myths, mysteries, and ghosts" and consisted of being lead to three different storytellers. For this particular tour they position a bunch of storytellers around the town, with different groups going to different tellers, and the tellers don't always tell the same stories. So you could take the tour over and over and not hear the same stories every time. The storytellers were good and the stories interesting. If I didn't have other things going on tomorrow and Wednesday (and if I weren't worried about dreaming about hangings or being buried alive -- these are spooky stories, after all) I might consider doing it again.
I get the impression that it's very easy to over schedule yourself here... there's so much going on.
Tomorrow I'm doing a walking tour about horses and a hammered dulcimer concert in the evening. Hopefully should be fun! :-)
The hotel is (as promised) only about a 10-minute walk from one end of the historic area, and also offers a decent (though crowded) breakfast. (Cereal, yogurt, bagels... none of that "we'll put out generic shrink-wrapped danishes and call it breakfast" stuff.)
Every morning from 10:30-ish to 12:30-ish there are a series of little vignettes held around one end of the historic area. When you enter you're given a little program so you know what you can see where and when. The theme for Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday is, "Collapse of the Royal Government" and the theme for Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday is, "Citizens at War." So, if you come two days in a row, you can see both the buildup to the war and the war itself.
The theme for Monday appears to be, "Two isn't evenly divisible into seven." (OK, technically it's "Building a Nation" but I suspect they just needed some stuff to fill in the extra day.) Some of the skits were pretty good -- the guy who did Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech was good, and the skit with a free black Baptist preacher and a slave from Africa was very good -- and some of them seemed more like something you'd see at the Renn Faire. I have a feeling that tomorrow's skits will be more thematically connected.
After George Washington gave his closing speech I poked around a few shops and hit the Cheese Shop for lunch. (Thanks sparkofcreation for the recommendation -- the shrimp salad sandwich was excellent.)
At 1:30 I went to the "Crystal Concert," which featured a variety of glass musical instruments, including the glass armonica, a set of glass English handbells (they sound slightly different from metal ones) and a glass violin. There was also a new instrument called a "crystal Baschet" which is made from glass and steel rods and reminds me of a cross between a piano and a cello. The concert was awesome. I'm tempted to go again Wednesday. We'll see.
After the concert I wandered a bit (I learned all about dovetail joints) and then hit the museum for a talk about menstruation in the 18th century. Really. Mostly women in that audience, with a smattering of (largely bored-looking) husbands and one embarrassed-looking teenage guy.
Afterwards I looked around the museums until they closed at 7. There are apparently technically two museums, one for folk art and one for decorative art, but they're housed in the same building so it's not really clear to me what the distinction is. (Bureaucratic, one assumes. Maybe they just needed to name it after two different donors.) They had a nice little collection of samplers, and if you ever want to see an enormous collection of coffee, tea, and chocolate utensils, you now know where to go.
I went to one of the no-reservations-required taverns for dinner. I got there just after 7 and they told me that it would take 25-30 minutes to seat me, but it was closer to 45-50, meaning I just had time to eat my soup and pay before I had to head out to catch my evening program. The waitress said something about coming back sometime when I had more time to spend. She still got her tip so I don't see why she should complain! They have common seating there meaning I was sharing a table with a family, who seemed nice.
The evening program I did was called, "Legends, myths, mysteries, and ghosts" and consisted of being lead to three different storytellers. For this particular tour they position a bunch of storytellers around the town, with different groups going to different tellers, and the tellers don't always tell the same stories. So you could take the tour over and over and not hear the same stories every time. The storytellers were good and the stories interesting. If I didn't have other things going on tomorrow and Wednesday (and if I weren't worried about dreaming about hangings or being buried alive -- these are spooky stories, after all) I might consider doing it again.
I get the impression that it's very easy to over schedule yourself here... there's so much going on.
Tomorrow I'm doing a walking tour about horses and a hammered dulcimer concert in the evening. Hopefully should be fun! :-)