5 Best Sights in Williamsburg and Hampton Roads, Virginia

The history of City Point includes a Revolutionary War skirmish and 10 months as General Ulysses S. Grant's Union headquarters during the Civil War, from which he directed the Siege of Petersburg. It's free to take the open-air, self-guided museum walking tour of 25 wayside exhibits and Grant's Headquarters. The City Point Early History Museum is in a former U.S. Navy church, St. Dennis Chapel, and can be visited by appointment.

The channel between Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads is the "mouth" of Hampton Roads. On the north side of this passage is Hampton's Fort Monroe, built in stages between 1819 and 1834. The largest stone fort in the country, it's also the only one still in operation to be enclosed by a moat; it was named a National Monument in 2011. Robert E. Lee and Edgar Allan Poe served here in the antebellum years, and it remained a Union stronghold in Confederate territory throughout the Civil War. After the war, Confederate president Jefferson Davis was imprisoned for a time in one of the fort's casemates (a chamber in the wall); his cell and adjacent casemates now house the Casemate Museum. Exhibits of weapons, uniforms, models, drawings, and extensive Civil War relics retell the fort's history, depict coastal artillery activities, and describe the military lifestyle through the Civil War years and the 20th century

The original Magazine (1715), an octagonal brick warehouse, was used for storing arms and ammunition—at one time 60,000 pounds of gunpowder and 3,000 muskets. It was used for this purpose by the British and then by the Continental army. Today 18th-century firearms are on display within the arsenal. This is the largest collection of Colonial muskets in the country. Every able-bodied man in Colonial times was expected to have and maintain a musket in his home. Between the ages of 16 and 55 men were expected to be a part of the militia, the civilian army that could be called to arms in defense of hearth and home.

On the northern edge of the city, this naval station is an impressive sight, home to more than 200 navy aircraft, including the F/A-18 Tomcat (the type of plane flown by the Blue Angels) and other planes assigned to the aircraft carriers of the Atlantic Fleet. From an observation park on Oceana Boulevard at the POW/MIA Flame of Hope Memorial Park, near the runways, you can watch aircraft take off and land. Non–Defense Department visitors can access the base only on the Hampton Roads Transit summer-only tours (photo ID required) or during the annual air show in September. Tours depart at 9:30 am and 11:30 am from the 24th Street transit kiosk on Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach and stop at an aviation historical park with 13 aircraft.

Yorktown Battlefield preserves the land where the British surrendered to American and French forces in 1781. The museum in the visitor center has on exhibit part of General George Washington's original field tent. Dioramas, illuminated maps, and a film about the battle make the sobering point that Washington's victory was hardly inevitable. A look around from the roof's observation deck can help you visualize the events of the campaign. Guided by an audio tour purchased from the gift shop, you may explore the battlefield by car, stopping at the site of Washington's headquarters, a couple of crucial redoubts (breastworks dug into the ground), the field where surrender took place, and the Moore House, where the surrender terms were negotiated.