One can easily spend a complete day or two visiting Colonial Williamsburg, which we proved during our day and a half visit, which left a number of sites yet to be explored. The highlights for us included the presentation by Martha Washington, which perfectly captured that noble lady's sense of responsibility to the nascent nation and to her husband, General Washington. The topic she chose was daring and, frankly, quite brilliant. The parallel between concerns and promise of the smallpox inoculation and today's corollary, COVID-19, was obvious, and handled with great sensitivity and insight. The quality of the performance was among the very best I have seen, on and off the stage. We also enjoyed our visits to the Indian encampment, the walking tour "Freedom's Paradox" conducted by Erik, I believe (10:00 Monday, Oct. 4), and visits to the foundry, carpenter's yard, cabinetmaker, and blacksmith.
We almost missed the foundry, which would have been a shame. The young woman at the gate was so busy with her phone that we thought she was a tired teen tourist. We asked about the large and impressive garden in the yard and she said she didn't know about it and to go inside to ask, then went back to her phone. Fortunately, she was the exception to otherwise very informed, engaging, and professional staff.
We were a bit disappointed that there appeared to be fewer open buildings and fewer "townspeople" and historic figures walking around and discussing the times than we recall from previous visits, and that there were fewer food options (which we attribute to COVID complications). In any event, we loved our visit and have recommended it to a number of friends who have said they will definitely add Colonial Williamsburg to an upcoming trip.