Richmond, Va.: What to do if you go
Getting there
Richmond, Va., is 90 miles south of Washington, D.C., and is intersected by Interstates 95 and 64. Major airlines and Amtrak serve the city.
Dining
The Jefferson Hotel offers its Sunday brunch and other meals.
With the revival of the Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom districts downtown, other restaurants and bistros are available, including Sam Miller’s, The Tobacco Company, Rivah Bistro and, for inexpensive seafood, Awful Arthur’s.
Lodging
Published rates for The Jefferson range from standard room, $265, to the Presidential Suite, $1,800, per night. Travel Web sites tout special rates as low as $219. Ask for special packages that may include dinner or brunch on weekends.
Near The Jefferson is another historic lodging, Linden Row Inn, which is less expensive and not as polished. A two-room suite with high ceilings and antiques is about $140 per night, including a light breakfast. Linden Row comprises a series of townhouses along Franklin Street and inner brick buildings in a courtyard. Some of poet Edgar Allan Poe’s childhood was spent there.
More to do
Richmond’s newest commemoration of its past is a statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son, Tad, dedicated in April at the Richmond National Battlefield Park. The city already was known for statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other leaders of the Confederacy.
The history of Virginia is not all male. At the Virginia Historical Society, busts or portraits of Martha Washington, Dolley Madison and Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons, are on display, as is Pocahontas.
Each Sunday from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, re-enactors at St. John’s Church portray 10 of the historical figures at the Second Virginia Convention.
Online
Virginia Historical SocietyMaggie L. Walker National Historic Site