Williamsburg Travel Guide

Williamsburg is dubbed the `largest living museum in the world', because of the fact that you find many historic buildings in a real living city. Within the United States this is rather unusual.

The Historic Area of Williamsburg is centered around the Duke of Gloucester Street. At one end, there is the Capitol Building, the British King's symbol of authority in the Colony. At the other end of the street the College of William & Mary, which was providing radical ideas to young law students like Thomas Jefferson. It is the second oldest university in the States. Visit the College's Wren Building, originally constructed in 1695.

West of the Historic Area, along the Virginia Route 5 Scenic Byway is Williamsburg's James River Plantation Country.  You can take a guided tour of the houses at Berkeley and Shirely Plantations and self-guided tours of the grounds of Edgewood, North Bend, Piney Grove, Sherwood Forest and Westover Plantations.