Charlottesville, VA cont.

Charlottesville Weekend Part 2 (to check out what we did on Saturday)!

We woke up Sunday morning and although it was a bit chilly out- we went for a run around the UVA campus.  It was so pretty, we ended up walking through and taking some pictures later in the day.  It’s definitely a bit hilly, but it makes for a good workout!

UVA is a public university founded by Thomas Jefferson, and established in 1819.  UVA was the first university that offered specializations such as astronomy, architecture, botany, philosophy and political science.

This is the Rotunda on a beautiful sunny day.  The library was housed in the Rotunda until a fire destroyed the building in 1895.  It was rebuilt twice since then, the second time it was was changed to Jefferson’s original design.

Jefferson’s orginal design revolved around the “Academic Village” which specified the stretch of lawn and the student rooms on both sides.

We walked around a bit and took some pictures, enjoyed the weather and imagined how gorgeous it is here in the fall.

We also stopped by for brunch at Boylan Heights for some brunch.  Although we came to this place for brunch, it actually prides itself on being a gourmet burger restaurant.  The place is very relaxed, with extra seating upstairs.  When we were here there was a mix of college students as well as families with kids.

Although I have not tried the burgers (we’ll have to do this on the next trip down), Boylan Heights gets its beef from organic farms in Virginia.  All of the beef is supplied through The Organic Butcher (traditional butcher in Charlottesville), ground daily and is hormone free, antibiotic-free and grass fed.  You can build your own burger, or try out one of the one’s which they have noted on their menu.

Sam ordered the Eggs and Toast, with a side of the Housebrowns.  The Housebrowns were definitely rich, but so good.  A different and delicious spin on hashbrowns.

The other side you could choose were grits, so I ordered those so we could swap and share.

I ordered the Egg Benedict- the Garden.  It had an english muffin with a poached egg, spinach, mushrooms, black bean corn salsa, goat cheese and a chipotle hollandaise sauce.

I think we’ll have to try making our own hollandaise sauce one Sunday morning.  This was delicious.

After we finished eating, we needed a little walk in order to digest our food.  So we walked around for a bit before getting into our car.

As we walked on Main Street, we saw these adorable pups outside one of the shops:

Isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen?!?  I wish our cats would cuddle like that.

We enjoyed our weekend trip to Charlottesville, and have already made plans to come back in the spring or summer.  I’m looking forward to sitting outdoors on the Pedestarian Mall, or walking through the beautiful campus!

Charlottesville, Virginia

For the long Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, Sam and I went to Charlottesville, VA.  We left DC on a chilly Saturday morning and headed south.  Some of our friends went to UVA and we’ve been wanting to explore this college town.  For the latest restaurants and fun things to do, I reached out to a fellow food blogger, Kath from Kath Eats Real Food.  She has a great Charlottesville page– with descriptions of places to check out.

We spent Saturday afternoon walking around the Pedestrian Mall on old Main Street.

There are many restaurants, boutiques and shops.  Walking from the west to the east end, we browsed around and checked out some storefronts.

At the east end of the Pedestrian Mall there is a Charlottesville Community Chalkboard:

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression was created so members of the public may express their views on any subject that they choose.

I have yet to see a spot like this anywhere else, so it was cool to check out and read what others have written!

Our first stop was Skybar.

We wanted to check out Commonwealth (the connected restaurant below) but it wasn’t going to open for another 30 minutes.  So we walked upstairs to find a covered bar (with heaters), I’d love to hang out at this place when the weather is nice.  Both of us tried new beers, shared a cured meats plate and some truffled fries:

This is a Blue Mountain Kolsch from Afton, Virginia.  Both of us really liked it, so the next time we’re in the area we’ll definitely have to visit this brewery.

The next place we checked out was Miller’s, it’s known for Dave Matthews starting his band- Dave Matthews Band– while working here as a bartender.

It’s a great dive bar, with a large beer menu (this is only 1 side of the list):

There are many choices, one of the one’s we tried was:

It’s Sixpoint Craft Ales brewery from Brooklyn, and they have a number of different beers.  If you ever see it on a beer list- definitely give this one a try!

And to fill us up, we got a giant nacho plate- although it was the 1/2 order (also known as the 54 1/2 nachos).  I’m glad we didn’t order the bigger one, since we didn’t finish this one!

By then we were tired after a long day, and decided to head to our hotel.

Good-bye Miller’s!

In the next post we’ll share what we did on Sunday…