Experience the best of Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg was a colonial port on the Rappahannock, and its downtown keeps many of its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings, with brick houses on tree-lined streets. The town has George Washington ties: his boyhood home at Ferry Farm lies on the river nearby, and his mother, Mary Washington, lived in the town.

The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park protects four Civil War battlefields, from Fredericksburg in 1862 to Spotsylvania in 1864, including Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, and the sunken road at Marye's Heights where the Union attack of December 1862 was cut down. The James Monroe Museum holds artefacts from the life of the fifth president, who practised law in the town.

Southern cooking shapes the local table: Virginia ham, peanut soup, Brunswick stew and sweet potato dishes. The mildest months to visit are spring and autumn. Summers are hot and humid, and winters are mild with occasional snow. Washington lies about 75 kilometres to the north-east.