May 10th we took a trip to Monticello in Charlottesville, VA with our friends Eleanor & Al. We decided, at Al’s recommendation, to take the scenic route down RT 231 from Sperryville to Madison. It is a beautiful and less traveled route through the countryside. At the end you pick up Route 29 which takes you into Charlottesville.

We arrived at Monticello around 2:00 p.m., paid for our tickets which are $22 per person and took the shuttle over to the main house. Our tour didn’t start until 2:40 p.m. so we enjoyed walking the gardens and reading some of the sign age throughout the area.

The tour began outside in front of the grand old house and then moved inside to the various downstairs rooms of the house. We were instructed not to use cameras or to touch anything as the house is a museum.

The tour is very informative about Thomas Jefferson’s life and those that lived on the property during that time period. The tour last about an hour and afterwards you can visit the other building such as the smokehouse, icehouse, summer kitchen and various other rooms at your own pace as well as the grounds.

The Univerity of VA can be viewed from the upper deck on the property.

We came upon a group that were working on an archeological dig. One woman was kind enough to explain what they were doing, the history that they were hoping to unearth and showed us some of their finds for the day.

During our tour we were told that more exhibits are in the works which would offer a tour of the upstairs bedrooms as well as more history of family and friends during that era. There was evidence of additional exhibits in the basement.

One thing that I found interesting after the tour is there are no grand stairs in the main entrance foyer like many VA mansions have.  The stairs instead are located at each end of the house. The one set that I saw was very narrow. It was said that Jefferson had many visitors daily, many of which were invited to  stay for dinner.

My thought is  that there were no stairs in the main area as he didn’t want people making their way up to the bedrooms uninvited!  LOL  I think it was stated that visitors traveled a minimum distance of 30 miles.  Which, during that time period could take an entire day to travel.  I’m sure they were hoping for an overnight stay invite as well.  On the grounds you can also visit the cemetery at your leisure, where Thomas Jefferson and his family are buried .

Afterwards we headed to downtown Charlottesville and enjoy a nice dinner at Bizou. We were able to dine in the outside courtyard which was very nice as the weather was sunny and pleasant.  We then headed back towards home. Hank mentioned ice cream and Al’s eyes lit up so we stopped off at the Dairy Queen in Elkton and all had an ice cream to finish off the evening. After dropping off Al & El we drove back home to Piney Hill and were faced with our left behind chores, LOL

For those that haven’t been I would surely recommend a trip to Monticello during your stay. For those that had been before I would definitely keep up with the changes that are soon to take place.

It is about an hour and a half drive from Luray, but during an extended stay of more than 2 nights to the area, well worth the drive. Take the scenic route as we did, you’ll enjoy it!!