Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg is an inland town set between the James and York rivers, so the beach is an outing, not part of the stay. The closest sand is the small, calm strip at Yorktown on the York River, about 20 minutes away. Buckroe Beach in Hampton faces the Chesapeake Bay, and the long Atlantic resort beaches of Virginia Beach are about an hour's drive.

In July and August the bay reaches around 27°C and the ocean about 25°C, so swimming is pleasant from June to September. Stinging sea nettles can drift into the bay in high summer. For most visitors a swim means the hotel pool or a water park, with a single beach day added to the trip.

Eating here leans towards Virginia classics: country ham on biscuits, peanuts and peanut soup, Chesapeake crab cakes and oysters, Brunswick stew and Southern barbecue. The colonial taverns in the Historic Area serve period-style menus by candlelight, more for the setting than for the cooking. Merchants Square and the streets near the College of William & Mary have a few good bistros, wine bars and cafés.

Away from the centre, Richmond Road is lined with pancake houses, family chains and buffets that serve the theme-park crowds. This is a small town, and the best meals tend to be the simplest local ones: a ham biscuit at breakfast, oysters or soft-shell crab from the bay in season, and a glass from one of the wineries on the edge of town.

The town's reason for being is Colonial Williamsburg. The restored capital of eighteenth-century Virginia covers about 120 hectares of streets, gardens and greens, where costumed interpreters work as blacksmiths, wigmakers and printers and play the roles of historical figures. Duke of Gloucester Street runs from the reconstructed Capitol to the College of William & Mary, whose Wren Building is the oldest college building in the country. On the way you pass Bruton Parish Church, the Courthouse and the taverns. Off to one side, the Governor's Palace stands at the end of its long green.

Nearly ninety original eighteenth-century buildings survive, set among many more rebuilt on their original foundations. The result is a careful, thorough re-creation rather than an untouched old town. The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg add serious collections of American folk art and decorative arts. Two or three days covers the place well.

Evenings in Williamsburg are quiet. A few pubs and bars near the College of William & Mary fill with students in term time, and there are some craft breweries and taprooms on the edge of town. A tavern dinner or a candlelit ghost walk is as late as most visitors stay out. Anyone after a real night out drives to Norfolk or Richmond.

The countryside here is low, green Tidewater: pine and hardwood forest, tidal creeks and marsh, and the wide estuaries of the James and York rivers. The Colonial Parkway runs along both rivers with almost no traffic, which makes for a lovely drive or bike ride. The Virginia Capital Trail sets off from Jamestown on a paved, flat route towards Richmond. Waller Mill Park and York River State Park offer easy forest trails, and kayaking is popular on the Chickahominy and the creeks, where you may see ospreys, herons and bald eagles.

There are no hills to climb, and summers are hot and humid with plenty of mosquitoes. Spring and autumn are the best seasons for outdoor plans.

Williamsburg is the middle point of the Historic Triangle, and its two partner sites are close. Jamestown, England's first permanent settlement in North America, is about 15 minutes away. You can visit the archaeological dig at Historic Jamestowne and the living-history settlement with its replica ships. Yorktown, where the decisive siege of the Revolutionary War ended, is about 20 minutes away and has its battlefield, a museum and a small riverside village.

West along Route 5 stand the grand James River plantation houses. Richmond is about an hour away, with its state capitol, museums and Civil War sites. Hampton, Newport News and Norfolk have maritime and art museums. Fredericksburg is around two hours north, and Monticello near Charlottesville sits a little beyond that, at the edge of a day out. The sites carry national rather than international weight, and a car is needed for almost all of them.

This is one of the classic family trips on the American East Coast. Busch Gardens Williamsburg is a large theme park landscaped as European villages, with big roller coasters and gentler rides for small children. Its sister water park, Water Country USA, is close by. In the Historic Area, children can watch a musket firing, join a fife-and-drum parade, help in a colonial garden or put questions to a costumed blacksmith. At Jamestown and Yorktown they can climb aboard replica ships and explore re-created forts and encampments.

The town is safe and relaxed, family motels with pools are everywhere, and the restaurants are used to children. The downsides are the hot, humid summers and the need to drive between the main attractions.

The Historic Area, Merchants Square and the college campus form a compact, flat district that you can walk end to end in about 20 minutes. Duke of Gloucester Street is closed to cars during the day, and a shuttle loops around the edge of the historic district. Beyond that, the town spreads out along highways. The theme parks, the outlet shopping, many hotels, Jamestown and Yorktown are spread over a wide area, and local buses are too limited to rely on. Amtrak trains stop at the station near the centre, but nearly every visitor drives or rents a car.

The shopping here is distinctive but narrow. In the Historic Area, colonial-style shops sell hand-made goods in eighteenth-century styles: pewter, silver, pottery, tin, books printed in the old way and reproduction furniture. Next door, Merchants Square has brick-fronted stores selling Virginia gifts, clothing, kitchenware and books. Out along Richmond Road there is a large outlet centre with the usual American brands, and a sprawling pottery and homeware store that has been a stop for travellers for generations. There is no luxury shopping and little in the way of independent fashion.

Williamsburg costs about what a mid-sized American tourist town costs. Rooms are the easiest part of the budget. There are a great many motels, chain hotels and timeshare-style condos along the main roads, and outside summer weekends and the peak vacation weeks they are reasonably priced. Eating out is at normal American prices plus a tip, and a rental car and fuel are close to unavoidable. The admission tickets cost the most: Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown and the theme parks each charge a substantial fee, so the multi-day and combination passes are worth looking into when planning.

Most of the performance here is tied to the colonial setting. There are eighteenth-century music recitals by candlelight, period theatre, fife-and-drum corps marching down Duke of Gloucester Street and evening programmes in the Historic Area. The College of William & Mary adds student concerts, plays and visiting performers in term time, and the theme parks put on their own stage shows in season. There is no professional opera, orchestra or theatre company of note in town, so for those visitors drive to Norfolk or Richmond.

Williamsburg has no bathing tradition of its own. Wellness means the spas at the historic inn and the golf resorts along the James River, which offer the usual massages, pools and treatments. What the town does offer is a gentle pace. Early mornings on the empty colonial greens, quiet riverside resorts and slow drives down the wooded Colonial Parkway make a calm stay possible once the theme-park crowds are left behind.