Experience the best of Manassas

Manassas grew where two railways crossed, which is why Confederate and Union armies fought over the ground twice, in July 1861 and August 1862. Manassas National Battlefield Park preserves the fields along Bull Run, with Henry Hill, a stone bridge over the creek and walking trails through woods and farmland. Thomas Jackson earned the nickname Stonewall here in the first battle.

Old Town Manassas, a few streets of brick shops and restaurants with a railway depot and a local-history museum, sits beside tracks still used by passenger and freight trains. Washington DC lies about forty kilometres to the north-east, the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley are an hour or so to the west, and Prince William Forest Park lies to the south-east.

Virginia cooking meets the Mid-Atlantic here, with crab cakes, Brunswick stew, barbecue and country ham on local menus, and a few vineyards and breweries in the countryside. The fields are green by late spring, the leaves colour in October, and the battlefield is at its quietest through the winter.