After 3:00pm Meet your Colonial Connections Escort at your Williamsburg hotel (includes luggage handling). All hotels have an indoor swimming pool and interior corridors for added security.
5:30-7:00pm Dinner at Golden Corral Golden Corral® family-style restaurants offer the biggest buffet and grill available anywhere. Their famous buffet contains an array of food choices including hot meat options, pasta, pizza, fresh vegetables, salad bar, a selection of carved meats and fresh baked goods and tempting desserts.
7:30pm Return to hotel. Rest of evening free.
Day 2
AM Deluxe continental breakfast included at hotel
8:30am Colonial Connections Escort rejoins group for a full day of touring
9:00-1:00pm Guided tour of Colonial Williamsburg - America’s largest living history museum. From 1699 to 1780, Williamsburg was the political, social and cultural capital of Britain’s largest, wealthiest and most populous colony. Colonial Williamsburg encompasses over 500 buildings and 180 acres of magnificent gardens. In the shops, taverns, government buildings, homes and streets George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason and other Virginia Patriots debated the ideas – liberty, independence, and personal freedoms – that led to the founding of American democracy. Interaction with hundreds of costumed interpreters of varied age, race, and social position provides a first-hand view of live when the town was the capitol of the Virginia colony.
The last stop on the tour will be at Bruton Parish Episcopal Church located on Duke of Gloucester Street, the main street of Colonial Williamsburg. Among the men of the Revolution who attended Bruton Parish Church were Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Patrick Henry, and George Mason. But the building's history, and that of its churchyard, goes back further in time. Dating from 1715, the present structure is the third in a series of Anglican houses of worship that began in 1660. The first, which may or may not have been at or near the 18th-century site, was built, probably of wood, in the Old Fields at Middle Plantation, Williamsburg's name until the 66-year-old community was incorporated in 1699. Formed from Middletown and Marston Parishes in 1674, Bruton Parish is named for Bruton, Somersetshire, in England, the home of then-Governor William Berkeley and Virginia secretary Thomas Ludwell.
1:00-2:30pm Enjoy lunch on your own in Merchants Square Located adjacent to Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area, Merchants Square is an 18th-century style retail village with more than 40 shops and restaurants. The shops at Merchants Square offer everything from traditional and designer clothing to handmade candies, antique quilts, folk art and a variety of exclusive Williamsburg reproductions. The restaurants on Merchants Square offer choices from a quick sandwich to the freshest seafood, steaks or contemporary American regional cooking.
2:45pm Regroup and meet your motor coach for a short drive to The First Baptist Church
3:00-3:45pm The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg originated in the 1700's with a quest by courageous slaves and free black worshipers who simply wanted to worship their God in their own way. In their search, they left the church of the slave owners, Bruton Parish, where worship was restrained and segregated, and built the first brush arbor* at Green Spring Plantation to gather secretly in song and prayer. Worshipers soon moved to a more convenient spot, Raccoon Chase, where Robert F. Coles, a compassionate white landowner in Williamsburg, inspired by the worshipers' stirring songs and soulful prayers, offered the use of his Carriage House on Nassau Street as a meeting place sometime in 1776.
4:00pm Return to hotel and relax before dinner
5:30-7:00pm Dinner at Doraldo’s Italian Restaurant A vacation in Williamsburg for a New York restaurateur and his family was the beginning. He and his family decided to stay in the area and the result is this cozy Italian eatery. Meals begin with a basket of garlic bread knots and salads are served family style.
7:15-8:15pm Before returning to the hotel stop at Yankee Candle Factory Nothing compares to Yankee Candle for creating a lasting impression. With 10,000 square feet of unique, interactive shopping and fun entertainment it’s more than you can imagine. This location is one of the world's largest candle stores with 250,000 candles and more than 150 different scents. In the Holiday Park you can experience the Christmas spirit everyday and original animated musical entertainment and activities like candle dipping provide something for everyone.
8:30pm Return to hotel
Day 3
AM Deluxe continental breakfast included at hotel
8:30am Depart with your Colonial Connections Escort for another full day of touring
9:15-10:00am Visit St. Peter’s Parish St. Peter's Parish was established in 1679. Construction on the present church building began in 1701 and was completed by 1703. A parish with a rich and interesting history, St. Peter’s has been a church home to countless people through the years, including some as well known as George and Martha Washington, who were married in this parish (and possibly in the church building itself) in 1759. Robert E. Lee and his family worshipped here and helped rebuild the church after the War Between the States. The church was designated as "The First Church of the First First-Lady" by the Virginia General Assembly in 1960 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.
10:30-11:30am Visit Westover Parish Westover Parish was established in close proximity to the original settlement at Jamestown in 1613. The predecessor of the existing Westover Church was constructed between 1630 and 1637 on Westover plantation. About 1730 the construction of the present Westover Church was completed. For almost thirty years after 1803, Westover Church lay abandoned. In 1833 religious services were revived and the Church structure was repaired and restored. Badly wrecked by Federal troops, through their misuse of the building as a stable during the Civil War, old Westover Church was once more restored to service in 1867 and has been faithfully supported ever since.
The silver that belongs to Westover Parish includes a chalice and paten, both marked London 1694-95. Down through the centuries, farmers, plantation owners, slaves and Presidents, including Washington, Jefferson, Harrison, Tyler and Theodore Roosevelt, have worshiped in Westover Parish.
11:30-12:30pm Transfer to Jamestown, VA. Enjoy a gourmet boxed lunch en route (provided)
12:30-1:45pm Tour Historic Jamestowne including the remains of Jamestown Church. Historic Jamestowne is site of the original Fort James, built by colonists in 1607 to maintain the first permanent English Settlement in the New World. A world-class dig has unearthed the original fort site and the skeletal remains of a colonist. Here the brick tower of the Jamestown Church of 1639 still stands. Visitors can take in a short movie about the first settlers and visit the new Archaearium where objects that have been unearthed belonging to Jamestown colonists 400 years ago are on display.
1:45-2:15pm Transfer to Yorktown via the Colonial Parkway traveling along both the James and York Rivers, the same route taken by colonist between the two settlements
2:15-3:00pm Visit Grace Church The sturdy marl walls of Grace Church have been standing since 1697 despite the ravages of war during the two sieges of Yorktown (1781 and 1862) and despite the "great fire" of 1814. It continues, as it has for generations, to serve the York-Hampton Parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia. The church celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1997.
3:00-3:45pm Guided Riding tour of the Yorktown Battlefield Administered by Colonial National Historical Park, the Yorktown Battlefield is the site of the last major battle of the American Revolution. Visitors encounter the British defenses around the town, the American siege positions and how General Washington successfully surrounded and defeated the British army. See the Moore House, where on October 18, 1781, officers from both sides met at the home of Augustine Moore to negotiate the surrender terms for Cornwallis’s army, and a stop at Surrender Field. It was here, a day later, that Cornwallis’ army laid down its arms, thus ending the last major battle of the Revolutionary War and virtually assuring American independence.
4:15pm Return to hotel to relax before dinner
5:30-7:00pm Dinner at the Whaling Company Long recognized as Williamsburg’s seafood specialist, the Whaling Company prides itself on the freshest fish in town and melt-in-your-mouth hand cut steaks. Since everything is made-to-order, every item is a “special!” Charming New England boathouse atmosphere.
7:30-8:30pm Cry Witch - presented by Colonial Williamsburg Participate in a dramatized charges of witchcraft brought against Grace Sherwood in 1706. The audience is invited to question the witnesses, weigh the evidence and determine the guilt or innocence of “the Virginia Witch.”
9:00pm Return to hotel
Day 4
AM Deluxe continental breakfast included at hotel
8:30am Colonial Connections Escort rejoins group to facilitate check-out and this morning’s itinerary (includes luggage handling)
9:00-10:00am Transfer to Richmond, VA
10:00-11:00am Visit St. John’s Church St. John's Church (in Richmond) became famous as a living memorial to American liberty when 120 Virginia colonial leaders including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Nelson, Jr., and Patrick Henry met there in the spring of 1775 to avoid the wrath of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore in Williamsburg. The Second Virginia Convention originally called to consider the recent proceedings of America's first Continental Congress became the setting for Patrick Henry's bold call for arming the colony of Virginia.
11:00am Depart for home. Colonial Connections Escort departs.
Package available from $332 per person double occupancy, based on a minimum of 30 passengers.
Note: Price does not include ground transportation.
