To Monticello

12 June 2019

Now that we were finally in the Chesapeake our first real road trip from the boat was Monticello. There were no real interstates going our way to Charlottesville, from nowhere to almost nowhere, so it was almost all two-lane byways all the way there. We saw a lot of the countryside, then had a late lunch at Croby's, within sight of Monticello at the base of the mountain. After that we went up the hill.

I was here maybe three decades ago, and much of the property looked very different. When I went before you drove to the top of the mountain and parked in a field maybe a 100 yards from the house, just to the right of the first picture below. Then there was little else around. The wings on the sides of the house were being dug up at the time, so you peered over what remained of the the walls down at the gridded floors.

Now you park well down the mountain at the visitor center, which I guess is about a decade old. It is wonderful, with exhibits, a cafe, gift shop and more. You take a tram up to the top of the mountain, where things started to look more familiar.

Below is the front door, where the tour started.

We wandered the grounds a little bit while waiting for our time to tour the interior of the house. No pictures were allowed while you were inside, ostensibly because many of the items inside were on loan from a variety of entities, and visual rights to all those items from all those sources was not established. Very worth it anyway.

The back has a large lawn, and one of the wings coming off of each side can be seen to the left of the house.

sv-hiatus.blogspot.com