Grand Illuminations in Williamsburg!

Sunday was the Grand Illuminations event in Colonial Williamsburg.  It's only an hour's drive away, and we know Williamsburg from our many trips to visit Matt at William & Mary during his college years, so we decided to enjoy the fireworks event, walk the historic area, and generally trip down memory lane at the college.  We have some favorite places from the kids' college years, including Williamsburg, Montreal (Katie at McGill) and San Francisco (Katie at Berkeley), and it's always fun seeing how things have changed.

We parked at the Colonial Williamsburg Visitors Center and rode the shuttle bus in to the Market Square area of the historic district, which is right across from the W&M campus.  Our first stop was to visit the statue of our good friend Lord Botetourt in front of the Wren Building, the iconic campus location.  It was here, way back in 1998 or so, that we first saw William & Mary on a bankers convention trip to Williamsburg, and thought this would be a great college for Matt.  Little did we know, lo those many years ago, that he would actually decide to go there!

After visiting the statue, we stopped by College Deli, a local hangout, for lunch and a beer, and noted how crowded it was.  There were many alumni in the area - no doubt visiting to attend the Illuminations.

One of the most bittersweet memories from Matt's college days was the death of a fellow rugby player and campus tour guide, Alex Reyno, in 2003, at the end of Matt's freshman year.  Matt spearheaded a drive to establish a memorial plaque for Alex and another rugby player at the rugby team's field.  We had attended the dedication ceremony, and we had a chance to revisit the site and assure ourselves that the memorial is still there and appropriately cared for:

We then made a stop by the campus coffee shop, the Daily Grind, and saw that all the students had their noses in their books, studying for final exams.  We strolled past the Sunken Garden and on back out to the historic district, where we stopped by the Campus Store and listed to the college's Christopher Wren Singers serenading the crowds with traditional Christmas music all afternoon.

One Illuminations event we signed up for was "A Charles Dickens Christmas," presented in one of the museums.  It was very enjoyable:  an hour-long pairing of selected readings from "A Christmas Carol" and other Charles Dickens works with traditional English carols, performed by three musician/singers and a reader:

After the performance, we stopped over in Market Square for Kathy to purchase her glow stick so she could participate in the lighting ceremony.  We walked out along Duke of Gloucester Street to the Capitol Building, feeling as if we were swimming through the crowds of tourists.  The weather was sunny and mild, and many small children were out and about.

We returned along Duke of Gloucester and then back along the Richmond Road edge of campus, on our way to dinner, when we spotted a raptor (we thought perhaps a falcon, but may have been a hawk) hanging out in a tree in front of Monroe Hall.  It's nest was in the tree nearby, and clearly it was disturbed, crying out repeatedly.  We thought all the traffic, and the flashing lights of some police cars, may have been trying its patience.

Dinner Sunday was at the Green Leafe Cafe and Restaurant, another of our favorite dives around campus.  Here's a photo of it on the left, with Paul's Deli, Matt's old place of employment, on the right:

The servers were overwhelmed by the crowds.  We think the restaurant just didn't staff up.  All the tables were filled and it took all our diplomacy to get the attention of a waiter.  But finally we were served, along with some tasty beer.  Here's Kathy enjoying her lamb burger:

After dinner, it was a walk back down Richmond Road to Duke of Gloucester Street where, since the sun had gone down, the intersections were lighted with large hanging braziers.  What had looked like ample piles of firewood piled next to them earlier in the afternoon proved not at all sufficient for the evening.  By 6:00 when we arrived, every brazier had used up its allotment of wood, and workers were delivering additional portions to each corner.  Here's David warming himself by one of the braziers:

The Illuminations themselves were a sight to behold.  We've certainly seen grander fireworks, but we've never been so close to such spectacular ground illuminations.  Here's a sample of one of them:

One little 3-year old boy in front of us was simultaneously frightened by the BOOMS and enchanted with the sparkling lights, and it was humorous, how he would first look away and hide his face and cry, and then immediately look back at the flashes as they lit the sky.

By 8:00 the fireworks were over, and we joined a huge throng of visitors walking the 1.3 miles back to he Visitor Center Parking Lot.  We were afraid that we would get caught in a large traffic jam as everyone tried to leave the parking lot at once, but we found that, since we had been among the earliest to walk back (rather than wait for the shuttle buses to resume their rounds an hour or so later), we got out of the parking lot easy, made our way to the highway, and were home before 9:00 pm.

All in all, it was a very satisfying day with lots of walking, historic tourist activities, traditional Christmas entertainment, and enjoying a trip down William & Mary memory lane!