This is a small building with plenty of history. Our guide was excellent, really outstanding. He is…read morea reenactor and was extremely knowledgeable about Civil War history. He showed us unusual items and explained how terms we use in our current lives date back to these items. His enthusiasm, graciousness and knowledge are commendable. Great tour!

Throw a rock near Culpeper, Virginia and you'll hit a landmark of Civil War significance. Thanks to…read morea non-profit that fights to preserve the country's earliest memories, Cedar Mountain Battlefield is a place for all to visit for free. Stopping by while at a nearby cabin, here's my experience: 1) Parking: Follow the signs to free parking near the visitor center. By the picnic table in the yard, you'll see a trailhead with maps and info on the battlefield. Follow the trails to find old gravestones and places where the battle took place. 2) Points of Interest: Markers along the trail talk about the significance of the battle. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson drew his sword during this battle for the only time during the Civil War. It was also his last battle led by him. 3) Amenities: There are benches along the trails looking out over the fields. Two cannons can be seen near one field with two outhouses nearby as the only restrooms on the grounds. It is worth noting that three historic markers put up by the Culpeper Calvary Museum clearly glorify the Confederacy over the Union. Even though erected almost 100 years ago, the fact that they remain standing shows the gap between an equitable society in this country.

Enjoyed the trails today with my hiking partner, Pookie-the-dog. The trails are in great shape,…read morewith mulch throughout the wooded area. The trails are well marked. There are historic gravesites, markers, and memorials. Today the site was quiet, with only 1 other hiking couple that after they left the visitor center parking, I didn't cross paths with them again. The caretaker was welcoming and engaged in lively conversation and recommended other nearby points of interest as well.

It's only open every other Saturday seasonally, but it was a really unique and interesting Civil…read moreWar site - featuring graffiti. It delivers what it promises. This seemed pretty common for troops to occupy houses on their travels and doodle on the walls, but this was a lucky example to preserve it behind paint which was discovered in time for it to avoid demolishion. Some graffiti is better preserved/readable than others, but it is a recent site to be opened to the public, so it's a work in progress. It's interesting to think of the young men who strolled through here 150 years ago. There was a knowledgeable guide who walked us through a few rooms pointing to some of the writing, a small exhibit, and a small gift shop. It's free, but since it's all volunteers, we gave a donation. It won't take very long to go through, but it's a cool historical site to visit in the area.

Loving history and graffiti, visiting the Graffiti House was a special treat. Built in the middle…read moreof the 19th century, the house is one of the best examples of Civil War graffiti. Used as a hospital during the War and occupied by both the Union and Confederacy, many soldiers signed their names or added drawings of horses, women, men, and more. The first floor has a little shop, a meeting room, and a restroom. (The restroom has some Civil War graffiti.) It's in the second-floor rooms where the majority of the historic graffiti can be seen along with stories of a few of its artists. It's a small museum open to the public thanks to a foundation, but it's worth your time!

We loved this! A spooky tour of historic downtown Fredericksburg riding in a horse drawn carriage!…read moreThis was so fun! A must try experience!

Very relaxed and informative. I highly recommend them for a tour of the city. It was a fun…read moreexperience and they went slow enough to give plenty of time for photos.

For a lot of people, this little train station to our small town is the first thing they'll see…read morewhen they stop by. My children love seeing the Amtrak trains roll by so we stop by to see them whenever we can and whenever the trains are actually on time (but that's a different story). I'll add I've never got on/off Amtrak from this location, but my brother frequents this station when he goes up to New York for work and he loves the convenience of the station. The folks at the station are really kind too. They've given my kids little train whistles in the past and it's always lovely to hear their interactions with travelers. I'll add that it's great that they built that overpass walkway where you can now park your cars on the other side for that much more convenience to accessing the train station. It was much needed!

In full disclosure, I didn't go on the train here, but I did check out the platform and surrounding…read moredowntown area of Culpeper, VA. I found it to be a quaint and charming little area with lots of history, nice restaurants, and a cool Veteran's Cemetery just beyond the Amtrak location.

Very tiny but informative place to start any visit to Culpeper - especially for a history buff!read more

At $5 I have to say it's a decent deal. Residents get in free, but they are paying the taxes for…read moreit. This is a good thirty minutes to maybe an hour. I do think a film or something like that, could really enhance this place that's about Culpeper. This town is named after Lord Culpeper, in the time of the British empire. There's a really neat exhibition of dinosaur tracks found. This was a added bonus. As expected some details about native Americans. They have a good display of arrowheads, and how these people manufactured them. The revolutionary war and civil war were covered. Even more modern conflicts were. One interesting artifact was a old camera, that shows how big they used to be. Same with a cash register. If you're close by it's worth it. The staff was friendly, and it was nice to learn a little more about the town.

Gnarly Hops & Barley Fest is a craft beer festival held in Culpeper, VA. The 2015 Gnarly Hops &…read moreBarley Fest was my first visit to this event. It is recommended you pre-purchase your tickets online. There is a limited number of tickets. If there are any left the day of the event at the gate - they are priced at $35.00 per ticket (which is $10 more than they cost online). The tix are provided via EventBrite - so we used the EventBrite app on our iPhones to digitally present our tickets. We had to show ID at a tent outside the gate, then were given a blue wrist band, showed our tix to get in, and were then given a small beer glass with 10 tickets for beers. One tasting per ticket. The event runs from 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm. It was a cold, overcast day with a threat of rain - and yet the place was packed to the gills! There was a stage set up with live music, lots of food vendors, and over 30 breweries to sample from. We hit a number of breweries - and not all of them. Some we intentionally skipped for various reasons (Dogfish Head - we've drank many of their beers), Anheuser-Busch (NOT a craft brewery - EPIC FAIL! I don't classify Shock Top as a craft brewery - which I guess makes me a beer snob!) We sampled beers from Blue Mountain Brewery (Afton, VA); Schlafly Beer (St. Louis, MO); Devils Backbone Brewing Co. (Lexington, VA); South Street Brewery (Charlottesville, VA); Legend Brewing Co. (Richmond, VA); Wild Wolf Brewing Co. (Nellysford, VA); Apocalypse Ale Works (Forest, VA); Duclaw Brewing Co. (Baltimore, MD); and more... One thing that I will massively ding the event organizers on - is the availability of Don Jons. They were a total of 13 of them - and the line to use them was very long. It took 25 minutes of standing in line to get to the front of the line. They need to double or triple the amount of Dons Jons for future Gnarly Hops. With that many folks sucking down beer, it needs to go somewhere... fast... Great event, we had a fun time, just did not appreciate the standing in long lines to drain the beer...

We enjoyed our time at the Gnarly Hops and Barley Fest. It was our first time at the event. This…read moreevent was located in Culpeper,Va. We were able to volunteer in the afternoon session. We came early and had free admission to the event. The festival offered unlimited tastings of the various beers. There were a few breweries that were flying through their beer. Wicked Weed and Far Gohn were probably the most slammed. I poured beer from Parkway Brewing in Salem. The food trucks all smelled great. Parking was a bit hectic, we ended up just paying a local church to park there around the block. I guess that is what we get for coming a little after opening.

Exceptional tour guide (Leta) gave us a fascinating tour of this original Georgian style brick…read moreTidewater mansion. Her family has been associated with it since 1853 and her stories were enthralling. This is an opportunity to grab a piece of history because her personal recollections greatly enhanced our viewing of a remarkably intact and preserved 18th century estate.

After enjoying our very first "Deadwood Trail" year before last but missing last year's due to bad…read moreweather, we returned this past Saturday evening since the weather was clear, cool, & autumn-crisp. We arrived around 7:30 or so, & were pleased to see it wasn't horribly overcrowded yet. Admission was $10 per person (which benefits the Culpeper County Sheriff's Office Santa Cop program), & we're glad that after hiking up from the front-field parking area we had cash on us, because admission was CASH ONLY, which we didn't find out until we had reached the window. (I checked their website afterwards & absolutely no mention of this is made anywhere on it. They may want to remedy this rather important omission next time around.) Two huge bonfires surrounded by seating areas were blazing away, & there were two food trucks - Buffalo Wild Wings & another whose name I don't recall, just that they were selling the usual burgers, hot dogs, wraps, & the like. (We both seemed to remember more food vendors the first time we did this.) Husband & I were in the front of our group of ten, which sent us into the abyss first. After going thru the dark snug winding wooden maze of the "barn", we came out on the trail where what, for me, was the scariest part of the walk (spoiler alert) - a line of scarecrows tied up against corn shocks, except at least one was a costumed person who jumped out at us. Since they had remained perfectly still at first, it was a surprise. Apart from that they had a camping scenario, a sawmill scenario, a "Deadwood" western town scenario, among others. It seems funny to critique something like this, but they had way, WAY too many "creepy clowns". It seemed like every other person was a creepy clown. In fact, they even had a "Welcome to Derry, Maine" section that had my husband wondering whether or not they were prepared for a lawsuit from Stephen King re: his Pennywise the Clown character - lol. There also seemed to be an awful lot of chainsaws. One other critique was the western saloon tableau where they had cowboy ghouls run thru the group firing off real guns (blanks, of course) & one guy shot his off so close to us that we both had sparks & gun frass (or whatever it's called) showering down on our faces & my left ear was still ringing the next morning. We heard another woman behind us complain about the same thing. They may want to rethink that a bit. One last thing we noticed was that during our last visit there was at least enough light so we could enjoy most of the costumes/props. This time everything was so dark you really couldn't see much of the masks/makeup. Except for all those clowns, of course - lol! All in all it was fun, & we'll definitely do it again next year if they hold it, except next time we'll wear ear plugs. It's for a good cause, & is infinitely less expensive than other "haunted" venues out there.

Scheduled a wine tour for my mom and a couple of her friends! Dederick picked the most beautiful…read moreplaces with good wine, the car service was out of this world and my mom can't wait to plan her next wine tour in the fall! Dederick was knowledgeable, friendly and charismatic! Everyone truly had the best time

Spectacular experience: highest level of attention to detail resulting in a memorable day that…read moreshowcased the area, its wineries, beautiful landscapes, all in the comfort and safety of a chauffeured vehicle. Dederick was the perfect choice and he exceed all expectations. Take your experience to a new level with the services of Shenandoah Shores Management!