48 Hours in Alexandria, VA

The port city of Alexandria is less than thirty minutes away from Washington, D.C., but this Virginia town seems timeless, in the good sense of the word. The narrow, colorful buildings in the Old Town bring back memories of the old America, where travelers would arrive here by boat or by horse, many of them immigrants who helped to build the idea of a new nation.

In a short visit tour to the Gadsby’s Tavern Museum, a former center for social life and politics, it’s easy to imagine both the rich and the working classes coming to Alexandria for dances and for business, staying in crowded rooms with no windows and drinking in the halls. It’s said that George Washington visited Gadsby’s Tavern frequently, as well as other important American historical figures of the time like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. It’s a small building steeped in American history like so much of the Washington, D.C. region.