Richmond Day 1 - Children's Museum and Monument Ave

Main room of the Children's Museum

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August 10, 2015 (Monday)

The breakfast today was great.  We had a nice selection of bagels, Krispy Kremes, muffins, sliced melon, whole apples, oranges and bananas plus a buffet with French Toast, home fries, sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs.  There is also a made to order egg bar which makes delicious omelettes.

The first exhibit

It was a rainy morning, so we stopped by Wal-Mart on Forest Ave. (next to the Westin where we stayed in 2010) to find Liam a wallet.  Then we went straight down Broad Street to the Children's Museum of Richmond.  It has a nice, big, free parking lot.  Admission is $16 per person, but the kids were in heaven!

There are a ton of different areas, including some outdoor areas.  It is essentially a huge play house although most or all of the exhibits have been designed to be educational.  Liam (6) absolutely loved it but he is probably at the top of the age spectrum for this attraction.  For our family though, it was perfect.  We stayed for about 1 1/2 hours and then it was lunch time, otherwise the kids might never have left! They both asked to return days later, and our 3 yr old asked for it by name.

The art room

For lunch we headed up Boulevard to Buzz and Ned's.  They have developed a big reputation for their BBQ and we were close, so we decided to check it out.  Sarah and the kids ordered the chicken sandwich and I order a brisket sandwich.  The kids didn't love it, the chicken is very smokey and thus a bit tangy and spicy  The brisket was good though.   Our meal was $29.43 (3 chicken sandwiches, 1 brisket sandwich, 2 fountain drinks and 2 fountain waters).

We decided to try and take some pictures of Monument Avenue on the way back to the hotel as it appeared that the rain would be holding off.  We started at the outermost monument, Arthur Ashe.  Very near, is a marker to label the location of the city defenses during the Civil War.  While we were at the Arthur Ashe monument, it began to rain lightly.  As we walked to the next monument the rain began to pick up.  Soon it was just plain raining!  Sarah and the kids made a game of running in the rain, but we called it quits at the Maury monument which is fitting as these monuments were the non Civil War monuments.

Marker to commemorate the second line of defense for the city of Richmond during the Civil War

Arthur Ashe monument

Matthew Fontaine Maury monument

As we were driving back to the hotel the rain let up and we saw the signs for Agecroft Hall and the Virginia House.  So, we decided to go have a look.  We didn't actually want to enter the buildings--it seemed like the kids are not the ideal age for that--but we did want to see what they looked like.

Virginia House from the right-hand entrance

Virginia House from the left-hand entrance

Virginia House was originally part of the Augustine Priory of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem in Warrick, England.  In 1925 there was a demolition sale and the Weddell family purchased the priory and moved these buildings to Richmond with the intention of gifting it the Virginia Historical Society.

Agecroft Hall is the property next door and is not easily visible from the street.  It is a rebuilt Tudor mansion that was also bought in England and moved to Richmond.  The grounds and house do look amazing from what we could see!

Tonight, we decided to order takeout from Olive Garden (see note below).  It takes about 3 minutes to drive there from the hotel, and is easily walkable.  We ordered 2 Garden Salads, 1 Chicken Parmigiana, and 1 chicken and gnocchi soup.  Everything was delicious!! Total bill was $29.48, but we had a $25 giftcard (that's why we chose Olive Garden) so the total was $4.48!  We were very impressed with how good the food was.  The portions were also very large, the Chicken Parmigiana was only about half eaten!

Note on our dining choices:

One of the best things about Richmond is the food!  The city has an abundance of high quality local restaurants that are one of the big draws for visitors.  Right before we left home however, Sarah pulled out a stack of giftcards that we had in a drawer that totaled close to $200, so we decided to try to use as many of those as possible on our trip (Some of them were seven years old!)  In addition, dining out is not very easy with a three year old and a six year old, so we mostly used our giftcards and ate in the hotel.  If you are able though, don't be afraid to wander into any restaurant that looks interesting to you, most of them are very good.