University of Virginia grounds and Monticello Tour @ $35:

President Kennedy, while toasting a gathering of Nobel Prize winners, quipped that the White House had not seen such a concentration of brainpower since Thomas Jefferson dined there alone.  Spend an afternoon learning about the man that wrote the Declaration of Independence, who is considered the Father of American Architecture, the Father of American Archeology, and a prominent botanist among many other accomplishments.  Yet when asked what he did, he would reply, "I'm a farmer."  We’ll take in the University of Virginia, his creation, and see why it is on the World Heritage list.

Next, we’ll tour Monticello, the home he designed and built (several times), the only home in the United States on the United Nations World Heritage list.  Get an intimate look at the extraordinary house Thomas Jefferson built and furnished for himself and his family. See the books, gadgets, art, furnishings, and objects that reveal Jefferson’s unique mind. The guided House Tour covers the rooms on Monticello’s first floor. (Because of fire codes, the upper floors are not a part of this tour.) Your tour also includes access to the grounds and two optional outdoor guided tours, of the Plantation Community and of the Gardens and Grounds.

Winery and local craft brewery Tour @ $45:

Blue Mountain Brewery sits in the shadow of Appalachia's Blue Ridge Mountains in Afton, Virginia. They are a farm brewery, grow their own hops, and proudly craft real American beer inspired by thousands of years of tradition but not limited by convention.

Veritas Winery, a family business owned by Andrew and Patricia Hodson, opened for business in June 2002; with the help of their daughter Emily and son-in-law Edward Pelton, they have succeeded in consistently producing a range of complex and elegant wines. The idyllic setting is easy to find but hard to leave, located at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The unique wines of Veritas are all of high quality, derived from vitis vinifera with the exception of one French hybrid. Our philosophy is to make wine with the classic, old-style principles of Viticulture and Vinification, at the same time using state of the art technology to capture varietal and regional character.

King Family Vineyards is a family-owned and operated boutique winery located in Crozet, just fifteen minutes from Charlottesville at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The winery specializes in small productions of ultra-premium wine that showcase the remarkable qualities of nearly 100% estate grown fruit. Founded in 2000, the winery's first vintage was only 500 cases. Today, the winery produces approximately 5,000 cases of wine per year.

Self-guided tours of the University of Virginia grounds, 
the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection, 
and the University of Virginia Art Museum:

Tour of the University of Virginia grounds: Student led tours (in groups of 20-30pp) meet inside the main entrance of the Rotund at 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm. Widely considered the most beautiful college campus in the world, the tours depart from the Rotunda basement by UVA's famous Lawn. Designed by Thomas Jefferson as the heart of his so-called "Academical Village," the Lawn's centerpiece is the Rotunda. The man himself lived to see it open in the summer of 1825. Seventy years later, the Rotunda burned to its brick shell, then was "restored" by architect Stanford White, and restored again to Jefferson's essential design in time for the American Bicentennial in 1976. Free guided tours of the Rotunda and Lawn include a peek at Edgar Allan Poe's room, #13 of course.

Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection: Tours (in groups of 20pp) will be led by a docent of the Special Collections Library and meet at 3pm with additional times pending on participation numbers in the main lobby. In June of 1776, Thomas Jefferson, thirty-three years old and already a well-known and accomplished writer, faced an enormous task: to draft a declaration of independence for the American colonies. Drawing on contemporary documents, Jefferson, with help from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, drafted the seminal document of American history—what he would later call "an expression of the American mind."

The story behind the Declaration of Independence, from its first printing to popular nineteenth-century facsimiles, is illuminated through the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection—the most comprehensive collection of letters, documents, and early printings relating to the Declaration and its Signers. The collection traces the writing, printing, and dissemination of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and subsequently, its remaking in the years after the Revolution into the American icon it is today. Documents and letters from the Signers bring to life the stories of the individuals who took great risks at that pivotal moment in American history. Highlights of the collection are on permanent display in the Declaration of Independence Gallery at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

University of Virginia Art Museum: Tours (in groups of 20pp) will be led by a docent of the University of the Virginia Art Museum and meet at 4pm with additional times pending on participation numbers in the main lobby. The museum exhibits art from around the world dating ancient times to the present. In addition to its permanent collection, which include exhibits of American and European painting and sculpture of the 15th–19th centuries including art from the "Age of Thomas Jefferson" (1775-1825); art from the ancient Mediterranean; Asian art; and 20th century art. Highlights of the collection of 20th-century paintings, sculpture and works on paper include American figurative art and photography. Each year the Museum presents 10–12 temporary exhibitions drawn from the collections and sources nationwide. The collection of Old Master and later prints and photography, as well as ethnographic holdings—African, Native American, Oceanic, and pre-Columbian art—are presented in temporary exhibitions, accompanied by related programs and publications.