<p>I’m spending the next 8 weeks at Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, VA as an intern with the National Orientation Directors’ Association. I’ll leave on Saturday and spend the night in Charleston, WV, then continue on to Lynchburg on Sunday and start work on Monday.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone in the area and I’ve never spent time in that part of the country. I imagine that because I’m working orientation my free time will be limited, but any “must-dos” while I’m in that area? I want to get off the beaten path and do some cool stuff but I’m also going to be by myself (unless a friend from NJ comes to visit) so I need single-person-friendly activities as well.</p>
<p>You’re close to Appomattox Courthouse, so if you like historic sites, I’d recommend that. You’re also near the Blue Ridge Parkway, an absolutely beautiful national roadway that runs through the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. Many attractions of interest are accessible by the parkway, if you’ll have a car.</p>
<p>You’re also about 90 minutes’ drive from Charlottesville, which is a great small city with wonderful restaurants. And it’s quite near my favorite historic site of all, Monticello. It’s a fascinating place, well worth taking a weekend day to explore.</p>
<p>Lynchburg–my other home town. A drive along the Blue Ridge Pkwy is very nice and it’s cooler up there in summer heat. I know all the restaurants in town well too. If interested PM me.</p>
<p>Lots of civil and revolutionary war stuff around. Lexington VA (home of W&L and VMI) is neat small town. Staunton is home to great summer shakespeare and is also cool town. Definitely hit the blue ridge parkway. Near Lexington is Natural Bridge (cool natural site but with slightly tacky gift shop) and foam henge - yes, a replica of Stonehenge in foam :). Also check out possible festivals in Roanoke.</p>
<p>Don’t know if Leesburg will be close by, but it’s a nice little town that my nephew works and lives in. He’s a cook and just got promoted to soux chef, and he said it’s a great area for restaurants. </p>
<p>I also heard that Liberty University is near there, and is supposed to have a beautiful campus.</p>
<p>My sister lives in Gainesville/Haymarket, near the Manassas Battlefield, if you’re interested in that as well.</p>
<p>She took us for a drive along Blue Ridge Parkway. Absolutely gorgeous. The town we ended up in was very nice and she said that it was haunted by Civil War soldiers, or so the stories go. We ate at a neat little restaurant at the base of the parkway. The Shenandoah Valley was amazing!</p>
<p>You are very close to some great hiking. Look on google maps for Crabtree Falls, which is about 40 miles from Lynchburg and is a very easy but beautiful hike along a waterfall. About 3 miles round trip.</p>
<p>And I’ll echo that it’s worth a trip to Charlottesville.</p>
<p>Stuff to do in town: Farmers Market downtown on Saturday mornings, Friday Cheers, the Riverwalk trail and associated trail systems, tubing on the James River, a walk through the Old City Cemetery, the Lynchburg Museum, Monument Terrace, Riverview Artspace, and there are several theatre companies.</p>
<p>Millstone Tea Room
Dish
Isabellas
Rivermont Pizza
Jimmys on the James
Shoemakers
Bull Branch
Ploughcroft Tea Room
Kings Island
Milan
Thai Siam (way out in country)
RA-Robin Alexander</p>
<p>Add my thumbs up for Rivermont Pizza, Ploughcraft Tea Room, and Thai Siam. Thai Siam is about 40 min north of Lynchburg, and so worth the stop. And you can get strawberries and peaches just down the road! Also forgot to mention the snowplex at Liberty U which offers year round snowboarding and such, but since I have never tried it, all I can say is it looks interesting!</p>
<p>It (Siam) would be a good stop coming back from Cville area. Just have to make sure owner is in town. She takes a month or so off to go to Thailand and closes it up. I’m going back in October and will be checking.</p>
<p>Monticello
Appomattox
The Blue Ridge parkway…you simply must go up into the mountains for the views
Smith Mountain Lake
Natural Bridge
Richmond, if you get a chance
wineries…lots of them everywhere.
Wintergreen
kayaking, canoeing on the James River
Washington DC is not all that far away, certainly easy to do in a weekend. Same for Virginia Beach and/or Williamsburg/Jamestown/Yorktown</p>
<p>LOL, my first thought was Lury Caverns too. I have a soft spot for caves. There are a bunch of them. My parents used to live in Lexington. You can walk along the Murray River (they pulled up the railway line), nice little shops, you can see Stonewall Jackson’s stuffed horse at VMI, or go to the Marshall Foundation Museum (also at VMI). [ASC</a> - Home](<a href=“http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/]ASC”>http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/) in Staunton is doing my favorite Shakespeare play this summer (Twelfth Night) and a Jacobean Drama that is a lot of fun (The Duchess of Malfi.) The Frontier Culture Museum (near Staunton) is worth a visit.</p>
<p>When my sister first moved up to Virginia, she and her husband would go to different wineries every weekend, where they actually worked, labeled bottles of wine, and in return, they would get to bring some home. You might want to do that for a weekend.</p>
<p>Also, while on Blue Ridge Parkway, we not only saw deer, big ones, too, but a bear! It was so awesome!</p>
I’ll keep all of these in mind.</p>