Old Town Winchester Virginia

This is part three of a travel series to West Virginia.  To start at the beginning, go HERE!

After hiking the Maryland Heights Trail at Harpers Ferry we were exhausted, so spending 45 minutes in the car on the way to the town of Winchester where we would spend the night, felt wonderful.

After the refreshing car drive, we checked into our hotel then headed for Old Town Winchester where we would grab some dinner.

Old Town Winchester is a 250 year old marketplace, and my favorite part is it's pedestrian only!  I love it when I don't have to deal with traffic on a town's Main Street, plus I get great photos of the old buildings. 

Old Town Winchester is located within the heart of a 45-block National Register Historic District and is bursting with outdoor cafes, fun & specialty retail shops, historic attractions and family-oriented activities throughout the year.

The Loudoun Street Pedestrian Mall has earned a listing on the National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary.

This post will be heavy-laden with photos of these old buildings because I just loved them all.  Everywhere I looked was a feast for the eyes.

We chose to eat at Roma's Old Town Wood-Fired Pizzeria and it was delicious!  Somehow I forget to take a photo of the pizza;  that almost never happens.  We must have been hungry. 😋

This is the Shenandoah Valley Civil War Museum which sadly we didn't get to visit because it was closed.  The museum is housed in the historic Fredric County Courthouse.  It was built in 1840 and used as a hospital, prison, and barracks during the Civil War.  

I just loved the brick roads!

The Winchester Masonic Lodge 😟

The Taylor Hotel has a rich history of travelers and Civil War stories to tell.  

The varied styles of buildings in Old Town Winchester was so interesting,  This building looks more like an old house than a store front.

And look at that little grill building sandwiched between two tall buildings.

Quite the Post Office isn't it?

This beauty was a woman's clothing shop (men's clothes were a separate business in the basement).  I actually went inside this one, mostly because I wanted to see the interior of the building and it did not disappoint.  I just love shopping in old historic buildings;  although I must admit I tend to be more interested in the buildings than the items for sale in the buildings 😊

And would you believe this is their public library?  In all my life I have never seen a more extravagant public library, and it was built in 1913 to be the citie's library.  It wasn't like it was built for another purpose and then repurposed into a library.  I find it so fascinating that they would built such an amazing building for a library.

Thank goodness it was open and we could check it out.  There was a book in the foyer that explained all about the libraries origins.  Just look at that photo with the horse and carriage, wouldn't you just love to step back into that time period?

The dome was just gorgeous.  The design of the library was to resemble an open book with the dome representing the spine and the wings representing the covers.  I don't really see it, but hey, it's beautiful nevertheless.

Just look at these curved staircases!  Be still my heart!

Of course we had to climb those stairs!

The view from the second balcony.

They even had a spiral staircase!

After our library tour, we headed back to in the direction of our parked car as it was getting late.  This place looked interesting, but they were closing up as we were walking by.

I continued to "ooh" and "ahh" over the architecture;  it reminded me a lot of Savannah Georgia.

As I walked these historic streets it made me wonder about all the people who lived here and life way back then.

There was such a variety of buildings from brick, to stone, to wood...all unique and different.  Usually when you visit a historic town all the buildings seem similar, but not here.

I wish Old Town Winchester wasn't so far away.  I'd love to come back someday when the pedestrian mall was hustling and bustling.  But I doubt I'll ever get here again as there is so much else to see in the world and I don't have a lot of time left at 63 years old.

Isn't this a sweet building?  And look at the tiny little shop next to it...so cute!

A beautiful church basking in the setting sun.

They even have private homes on the pedestrian mall.  Isn't this one grand?

I think I love the cute little cottages as much as the big ornate buildings.

 I hope you enjoyed my little tour of Old Town Winchester  Virginia.  Next week I'll be back with a visit to Black Water State Park.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

For more posts from this travel series check these out:

Harpers Ferry West Virginia

Hiking the Maryland Heights Trail at Harpers Ferry

The Jamestown Settlement

This is the final post in a travel series.  In this series, we are headed east starting in Wisconsin and going all the way to Virginia to see the home of George Washington and Colonial Williamsburg.  To start at the beginning, go HERE where  we stop in Indiana to celebrate Easter with my daughter, son-in-law, and our grandchildren.

After seeing the site of the original Jamestown Settlement the day before, the next morning we headed back to Jamestown to learn all about how the early colonists lived in Jamestown.  The Jamestown Settlement is located just a short drive from the original site.  This place is similar to Colonial Williamsburg:  it's a living history museum with a reconstruction of Jamestown,  a museum, and live people showing how the early colonists lived.

Outside of the living history museum is this Quadricentennial Plaza which has a sculpture of the three ships (Godspeed, Susan Constant, and Discovery)  that arrived in Jamestown with the first colonists and  the flags of all fifty U.S. State displayed in the order they were admitted to the Union. 

After we paid our admission fee (just $20) we saw a short movie title "1607:  A Nation Takes Root".  This film traced the evolution of the Virginia Company that sponsored the Jamestown Colony and also looked at the relationship between the colonists and the Powhatan Indians.

Now, the smart thing to do would be to walk through the very large, and nice museum first, then explore the grounds.  We did it the opposite;  we decided to explore the grounds in the cool of the morning, and also while it was less crowded, and then tour in the museum in the heat of the afternoon.

Once outside the first thing we saw was this memorial.  It was erected in 1957  to commemorate the settlement established in 1607.

Going outside first was a smart idea.  We had the whole place to ourselves, if only for a short while, and got some great photos.  Pictured below is the outside of the James Fort.  It is surrounded on all sides by a tall picket fence.  

There are cannons inside to protect the colonists from the Indians.

You could freely walk inside all the buildings and see how the soldiers/colonists lived.  There was a lot of armor, and weapons displayed.  They also had helmets and breast plates for small children or silly husbands to try on.

Some of the buildings had actors inside dressed in period costume demonstrating a skill of the early Colonists.  You could talk to them and ask questions.

One of the buildings was a church but this public building was also used for legislative meetings as well.  Those pews do not look very comfortable.  I wonder how long the sermons were?😆

In addition to the Anglican Church, the re-created fort had a court of guard, a storehouse, and a governor's house all with thatched roofs.

Pictured below is the inside of the storehouse. 

These employees were giving a cooking demonstration.  They had live chickens running around.

I would imagine this more ornate bed was in the Governor's house as none of the other beds we saw looked like this.  

This man was showing the tools he used in the practice of medicine.

And what is a living history museum without a blacksmith?

When we were done touring all the buildings inside the James Fort, we saw a Musket Demonstration!

When we exited the fort, we saw colonists working in the garden.  

Our next stop was to head to the James River to see life-size replicas of two of the three ships that brought the Colonists to the New World.

You could walk onto the ship and go below deck!

I had to ask the employees if these were really life size replicas because they seemed so small.  It was hard to believe that they held all the colonists, the crew,  plus their supplies, but he assured me they were accurate.

It is really fun and exciting to get on these ships and just imagine what the journey must have been like for the early colonists.  I can't even fathom how difficult it must have been.  We get upset today is our two hour plane ride has a layover.

After touring the ships and soaking in the James River views, we then headed over to the Paspahegh Town.  the Paspahegh were one of 30-plus Algonquian-speaking tribal groups that belonged to the Powhatan paramount chiefdom.  The re-creation of their town was based on archaeological findings along the James River, oral tradition from Virginia's tribes, and descriptions of illustrations recorded by English Colonists in the 17th century.

The town is located in a wooded clearing and has reed-covered houses with cooking areas, fields, and a ceremonial circle of carved wooden posts. Here guests learn about the traditional culture of these Indigenous people.  Historical interpreters discuss and demonstrate traditional Powhatan cultural activities such as hunting, fishing gathering, preparing food, processing animal hides, crafting a dugout canoe, making pottery, and weaving. 

It was really fun to be able to inside one of the huts and see and learn how the people kept warm with a fire.  It was really smokey if you stood up, but if you were sitting or laying down it wasn't smokey at all.

Well, by now we explored all the outside grounds so we went back inside to enjoy the museum.  It was a very nice, large museum with lots of great exhibits and movies.   The museum features a collection of more than 500 period objects from Virginia, Europe, and Africa.  Visitors can compare and contrast each of the three cultures and the impact of the 1619 historical events that shaped Virginia

My favorite part of the museum was the "Bacon's Rebellion" 4-D multi-sensory movie where we learned the story of a 1676 armed rebellion of Virginia colonists and how the town of Jamestown ceased to be.  Such a sad story.

And that concludes my travel series to Colonial Williamsburg and the Historic Triangle.  My next vacation will be to Door County, Wisconsin in August and after that we are going back to Branson, Missouri in the fall.   In the meantime, I plan on showing you lots of staycations.  

Have a Great Week!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

For more information on the Historical Triangle, check out these posts:

The Governor's Palace

The George Wythe House, the Capitol, and More! 

The Courthouse, Raleigh Tavern, and Merchants Square in Colonial Williamsburg

Things to See and Do in Yorktown

Historic Jamestown