Stroll along Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg, Va., and be transported back to the 18th century.
By: Pat Summers
For others who have visited the place, merely the words "Colonial Williamsburg" may call up images of trade and craft demonstrations, costumed interpreters, or fife and drum parades. Then there’s my main memory of our November trip to Virginia and its remarkable living history museum.
It was Thanksgiving eve: an almost balmy night with fallen leaves everywhere, rustling underfoot and exuding that distinctive scent; the velvety darkness resulting from absence of street lights and a haze-covered moon; old-brick buildings with wide brick sidewalks; and bonfires here and there in the street where people strolled, talking quietly.
Occasionally fed by bunches of leaves and peanut shells tossed by children, each fire signaled the presence of an 18th-century-style tavern on Duke of Gloucester Street, Colonial Williamsburg’s "main drag." It runs for about a mile from the College of William and Mary on the west to the capitol building on the east, with countless points of interest along the way.
This renowned historic area includes 88 buildings surviving from the 18th century and hundreds of others painstakingly rebuilt. Virginia’s capital until 1780, Williamsburg became a quiet college town when the capital moved to Richmond. In the early 20th century, supported by John D. Rockefeller Jr., the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation was formed to restore and maintain the historic town.
Those waiting outside taverns for their reservation times (you read it right: reservations) could dig into capacious baskets filled with peanuts in the shell, there for the appetite-whetting. For one of us, insecure about traveling far without peanuts in some form, these were true comfort stations.
In one such tavern, we were pleasantly surprised to enjoy our eventual, non-traditional dinner of (what else?) ale, cheese and toast and all the Virginia peanuts we could shell and eat. The only vegetarian item available on the fare, this cheesy meal came with informative patter from our costumed waiter, a master at serving strangers seated together at long, family-style tables.
A few wandering minstrels played a variety of 18th-century instruments, inviting diners to sing along with a colonial tavern song or two from Thomas Jefferson’s collection. Making it look easy, our waiter broke out his own "rhythm bones" two flat pieces of wood that sounded like castanets and required digital dexterity and joined in.
We stayed at a perfectly adequate but cookie-cutterish Embassy Suites on Bypass Route 60, one of two confusing Route 60s there. It was as close to Colonial Williamsburg (and its fabled Inn) as the travel agent could get us in August, when we had broached the idea.
To Williamsburg regulars, I’ve already said enough to indicate this was a first visit for my husband, Joe, and me. For one thing, we hadn’t made a dinner reservation in advance, assuming things would be slow in November. Wrong.
The only restaurant we were (barely) able to book for Thanksgiving dinner featured seafood. This would have been fine with us if the seafood had also been. The moral of all these reservation references: book for serious places or dates in Williamsburg a year or more ahead. We were many months late.
Still, we thoroughly enjoyed the trip, a drive of about 350 miles, and our experience of Colonial Williamsburg. For that, credit our goals: take a leisurely and lovely ride through austere autumn vistas; go South, for weather more likely to be warm; do only as much as we felt like, and no more.
We’ve found that places like Williamsburg can be handled in either two ways: first, treat it like "homework," as in visit every display, take every tour and maybe even jot notes. And definitely take pictures or at least collect representative postcard views.
The second approach, ours, entailed wandering where and when we wanted, dropping in on places of interest and dropping out for reading or napping at the hotel. In other words, we didn’t buy tickets to enter every building, nor did we take any walking tours except our own or any photographs.
While we would fail any content test on Colonial Williamsburg, we were high achievers at enjoying the ambience, weather and people-watching, including a woman pushing a toney perambulator with her small dog as passenger.
In a laid back way, we managed to learn quite a bit. Colonial Williamsburg publications abound. There’s signage. And people in period clothes will invariably speak in character.
And we had boned up a bit en route. As we drove south on interstates 295 and 95 to Virginia, whoever was the passenger dispensed highlights about the route and the destination, along with energy-building Cadbury chocolate.
Not only did Colonial Williamsburg’s reputation precede it, but on site, both the publications and the people proved tirelessly on-message: "The world’s largest living history museum" and "That the future may learn from the past," and so on. In short, Williamsburg is big business, one that seems benevolently regimented, right down to the dress code for the Williamsburg Inn no denim after a certain hour indeed!
How easy it was to enjoy the huge magnolia trees, the Palace Green sloping down from the Governor’s palace; the old cemetery next to Bruton Parish Church; the open-air (70-degree temperatures) market where "colonial souvenirs" tricorn hats, wooden muskets and even rhythm bones were for sale.
At the western end of Duke of Gloucester Street is a frankly commercial area called Merchants Square (would you believe "Colonial Talbot’s"?), which shops offer upscale "Williamsburgiana" brass candlesticks, anyone? and restaurants. Escape all that, from either boredom or thrift, by simply walking a few buildings away and back to Colonial days.
One day’s travel on super highways was enough; it wouldn’t do for the return trip. Where we wanted to be, as usual, was the coast, with its watery sights and smells. That’s guaranteed via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, a 17-mile-long engineering wonder we use whenever we can.
Driving south and east about 40 miles extra, we picked up Route 13, leading north to the "CBBT." Bliss, even on a cloudy day: the sweep of the huge choppy bay, the gulls and ships, the lung-clearing air.
That much would have sufficed. But since breakfast was a must, we detoured into un-beautiful downtown Exmore, Va. Our risking was rewarded by a little gem: the Exmore Diner.
Marking its 50th anniversary this year, this tiny place boasted "old-fashion food, old-fashion prices" and delivered. Classic corrugated stainless steel and light fixtures drew our attention, then were upstaged by pink, banana and black wall tiles in cunning patterns, capped with a ruffly yellow-and-white-checked valence over every window.
Over hearty breakfasts, we eavesdropped on hunter talk from men in camouflage and studied the menu: biscuits and grits, trout and oyster sandwiches and clam fritters; all dinners under $11. The lemon meringue pie looked lusciously "old fashion."
And so it happened that a major highlight of our trip to 18th-century Colonial Williamsburg proved to be a mid-20th-century phenomenon that helped us gradually accelerate back into 21st-century New Jersey.
Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Va., is open 365 days a year. For information, call (800) 447-8679. On the Web: www.colonialwilliamsburg.org