Monticello, Virginia

Drove through beautiful woods to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. The house is in a beautiful setting and was originally part of a 5,000 acre property that is now owned by a private foundation. No photography was allowed inside during our two hour Behind-the-Scenes tour. We saw rooms on all four floors and there were some very innovative features throughout the house, including the polygraph which Jefferson used to sign duplicate copies of documents, the revolving bookstand, wine dumb waiter, seven-day clock and many others. After a break for lunch we did the Slavery Tour - really interesting and the 'other' side to Jefferson and his home. Most historians now believe that he had a lengthy relationship, and fathered at least one child, with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves. He only freed five slaves in his will and she wasn't one of them, so the man who publicly decried slavery as an abomination was somewhat conflicted. The slaves lived and worked on a road called Mulberry Row but very few original buildings remain. The last tour we took was the Garden Tour, covering the flower beds and the enormous vegetable garden beds. The vegetable garden was laid out in beds that covered 1000 feet. The garden has 330 varieties of vegetables and 174 fruits & the produce is used in the cafe, for seed production and some is given away. Easily the largest vegetable garden I've ever seen! We visited his grave on the way down the hill. It is still used by descendants of the Jefferson family, although not by any descendants of Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Apparently there were several burials there this year. We walked form there to the Visitor Centre - a beautiful walk through a lovely wooded area.
We left Monticello to return to the B&B, took a wrong turn and the GPS took us, once again, on a very long & winding route home. After dinner in Charlottesville we caught a cab and ended up making him take us back to where he picked us up from because he had no idea where he was going - what a circus!! Eventually called the Inn and they organised an Uber car for us - the driver was German and didn't speak very good English but we got home in the end!
The first shot is of the front of the house, where the dome is not visible, the second from the rear, including the dome. The third is of the only room in the house we could photograph - it was a tiny space off the dome which his daughters used as their private space. The fourth is a cabin on Mulberry Row, the fifth is the vegetable garden, although it was difficult to show how extensive it was and the last was us with the man himself.Read more