Monticello

Another thing we did while in Virginia was visited Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  You have to go on a guided tour to go inside the house.  Then, you only see the main level and not the upstairs.  No pictures were allowed inside the house.  Therefore, all I have to share is on the outside.

From the front, it appears to be just one level because of how they did the windows and other elements.  But there are two.

Front entrance.

Going through the inside of the house, it was interesting to hear about some of Thomas Jefferson's inventions.  A big lover of books, he created a rotating stand that could hold five books, so that he could be reading more than one at a time.

View from the back.

A small desk was pointed out to us that was used for home schooling.  We were told Jefferson believed that girls should receive an education and his daughters were home schooled.  Here is a link that explains a little more about his views of females, education and his daughters.

Underneath the house was a basement area with different storage areas, a wine cellar and a beer cellar and the kitchen.

A view down the basement corridor.

The inside of the house was interesting but what I enjoyed more was the outside.  Not particularly the house, but the surrounding landscape.  

Monticello sits atop a hill and has great views.  The landscaping around the house is nice and I especially liked the big, long garden which was used to help feed all the slaves at the time.  It sounded like they tried to be as self sufficient as possible on the plantation.  

When the supply of imported cloth was cut off, Jefferson brought in an artisan to build textile machinery and to train the slaves to make cloth.  This was used to clothe the slaves.

A nice view.

View from the structure in the garden.

Some of the garden.

We were fortunate to have nice morning weather for our visit.