Colonial Williamsburg Garden Tour

Red and I took in as much as we could walking around and touring Colonial Williamsburg Friday morning (Aug 24). One of our tours was to see the various gardens of the 18th century called The Gardens of Gentility. The first and the largest was of the Governor's palace. The second one was of George Wythe's home (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence). The third one was quite small, belonging to the home of James Geddy, Williamsburg's silversmith and jeweler. The tour provided a comparison between the gardens of royalty, gentility, and middle class folks of the late 18th century, taking about 2 hours. The next several photos are of the Governor's Palace and garden.

Front of Governor's Palace

Rear view of the Palace

And the following photos are of the garden of George Wythe's house.

Following the garden tour, Red and I continued walking around town and taking note of various other gardens, yards, and architecture. One of the things I noticed was just about every yard had at least one Rose of Sharon. They are such beautiful plants. Here are a few of the photos I took of them.

After walking around town, and feeling quite warm and sticky, we decided to drive over to Yorktown and cool down in our air conditioned car. The following photo is the only one I took while we were in Yorktown. I believe Red has a similar photo on her blog.

We then grabbed some dinner before returning to Colonial Williamsburg for our evening programs. The first one was Legends, Myths, Mysteries, and Ghosts. Below is a photo of the Lumber House, where the tour began (at 7 pm). Our second tour began at 8:30, held in the Court House, called Papa Said, Mama Said. There we heard stories about those who served as slaves and whose parents passed on their stories of culture, ethics, and morals of their ancestors from Africa. Each of our tours had volunteers/docents who were dressed in historic colonial attire. I sure felt sorry for them being dressed in such warm clothing. Here we were in shorts and T-shirts and still uncomfortable from the heat and humidity.

East Coast Vacation

Red and I have returned from our week long vacation back to the Mid-Atlantic states. We visited what is known as the Historic Triangle, which includes Colonial Williamsburg, Historic Jamestown, and the Yorktown Battlefield. We also visited George Washington's boyhood home, called Ferry Farm located in Frericksburg, VA. This is where we did some tour guided bird watching on the property. We then drove to New Jersey to visit relatives and participate in a family reunion. The following day we drove back south again to continue our vacationing historic areas. We managed to visit Annapolis, MD, Washington, DC, and Mt. Vernon, VA. And as usual, never enough time to visit everything we wanted to see. Nevertheless, we did enjoy our vacation and we have spent the last several days going through and editing our photos - a very time consuming activity. Red has posted about our flight to Richmond, VA and posted a few pix of our visit to Historic Jamestown.

Here are my photos (with comments) - sorry if some of them are repeats of what Red posted.

This is a view of the James River. As you may note, the weather was mostly cloudy, very warm and humid, quite muggy for most of our trip.This is a close-up of the sign seen in the previous photo. I think you can see an enlarged view of this by clicking on it. If you can see the enlarged view, you will note that there are quite a few archeological digs going on there in Jamestown. The most active one (photos below) was located between the Memorial Church and James Fort. Here is the sign regarding the most recent excavations. If you want to be able to read it, click on the photo to get an enlarged view.

Here is the statue of Pocahontas.

And here is Captain John Smith's statue.

These are views of the James River with a cannon (not sure if it is authentic or a replica) used to protect the people of Jamestown.

We saw this boat go by on the James River - is this a barge?

And this stone is a tribute to the original settlers from England (1607) given by the Society of Daughters of Colonial Wars (1928).

And this "house" is a research center which is private, not open to the public. I was so attracted to this building and its landscape I just had to post it. Not only is the building itself very attractive, but the lawn and the crepe myrtles around it were breathtaking.