A stroll through the 18th century

Continuing the posts on my family's recent trip to Williamsburg, VA ...

We got up on Saturday morning and made the 8-minute walk from our room at the Autumn Leaves B&B to the Merchants' Square area of Colonial Williamsburg. After buying tickets - expensive, but worth it - we went on a stroll down the Duke of Gloucester Street and took in some of the sites.

Our first stop was at the Capitol, which is an early 20th-century reconstruction on the foundation of the original building. The picture above is from the room where the House of Burgesses met. The tours of buildings in Colonial Williamsburg typically don't last more than a half-hour, which is ideal for taking in a particular site without going overboard. And the guides tend to be knowledgeable and interesting. (They often double as actors and you're likely to see them 'in character' later on around town.)

After the Capitol, we headed back up the Duke of Gloucester Street so we could grab a snack at the coffee shop behind the Raleigh Tavern. With coffee and hot tea in hand, we branched out onto some side roads, walking up Nicholson Street and then taking a right up North England. To make it back to Merchants' Square, we ended up wandering through some gardens and alongside some sheep enclosures before emerging from behind the Governor's Palace. It was about 65 degrees and sunny - as close to perfect as you could get for a November morning.

A brief visit to some shops in Merchants' Square left us sufficiently hungry that we decided to break for lunch. The day was warm enough to let us dine outdoors, which we did at a bistro called The Trellis. The picture below shows me pondering the history of the place (and the cheeseburger I was about to eat).