 
Breakfast and browsing If you don’t mind the fifteen-minute wait, THE TAVERN (1140 Emmet St. N.; 434-295-0404) is the place for breakfast. Inside is a jumble of linoleum tables and booths heaped with platters of eggs with bacon, stacks of pancakes, or biscuits and gravy, all delivered with lightning speed. For big eaters, this place is an institution. If that’s too many calories to contemplate, at BODO'S BAGELS (1418 Emmet St., 434-977-9598; 505 Preston Ave., 434-293-5224; 1609 University Ave., 434-293-6021) breakfast is lox, cream cheeses, and chewy, melt-in-your-mouth bagels. Out front, a line of newspaper boxes stretches half the length of each store. Once you snatch up a Bodo’s bagel and a daily paper, you might as well be a local. Or, should you feel the craving for another type of hollowed baked good, visit SPUDNUTS (309 Avon St.; 434-296-0590), where the doughnuts are both uniquely flavored and unforgettable. The local store has been owned by the same family, the Wingfields, for four decades. After breakfast, PANORAMA FARMS (300 Panorama Rd.; 434-978-4566) is an idyllic place for a morning trail run or a mountain bike ride. A former cattle farm, Panorama has more than twenty miles of managed trails—not to mention all-around Blue Ridge views you couldn’t buy for millions. For those seeking less fitness-like pleasures, shopping abounds. Foodies swoon over MAIN STREET MARKET (200 W. Main St.), composed of nine locally owned food, wine, and cooking stores beneath one roof, including the specialty, all-local foods store FEAST. The most “Charlottesville” store for sportsmen is the nonchain MOUNTAIN RIVER OUTDOORS INC. (1301 Seminole Trail; 434-978-7112). Staffed by a regiment of outdoor enthusiasts, the store has an inventory of hunting and fishing gear that’s by far the deepest in town. As might be expected from the city of Mr. Jefferson, Charlottesville is steeped in reading and writing. At the Victorian-tinged and orderly NEW DOMINION BOOKSHOP (404 E. Main St., on the Downtown Mall; 434-295-2552) the friendly and knowledgeable proprietor, Carol Troxell, traffics in new books and literary classics. Just a block away, DAEDALUS BOOKS (123 Fourth St. NE, just off the Downtown Mall; 434-293-7595) is a nationally known purveyor of rare, out-of-print, and collector’s volumes, with an inventory of 100,000 books. “If you’re looking for a specific title, just ask,” says owner Sandy McAdams. Finally, the town’s most distinctive furnishings/lifestyle store is AND GEORGE (3465 Ivy Rd.; 434-244-2800). Named for the English bulldog that occupies the place, it has elegantly quirky wares—custom furniture, handmade clothing, and collector’s pieces—that deliver surprises at every visit. Lunchtime Heeding the call for lunch is a wise pursuit. At midday, the place that can be called Charlottesville’s cultural nexus is RIVERSIDE LUNCH (1429 Hazel St.; 434-971-3546). It’s at highest form on autumn Saturdays, when hunters—boots still muddy and calls dangling around their necks—collide there with pre-tailgate UVA football fans downing that first cold one. The burgers are heaven on a bun. Another C’ville lunch utopia is MARCO & LUCA (112 W. Main St., on the Downtown Mall; 434-295-3855), where the chalkboard menu offers inexpensive and tasty Chinese dumplings, soups, and noodles. It’s all home cooked and sold by a wife-husband team. The place moves dozens of orders every minute. Nap time If rest is calling, hie back to your top-drawer digs at the BOAR'S HEAD INN (200 Ednam Dr.; 434-296-2181). Set a few miles west of town and centered around an 1834 gristmill turned restaurant, this 170-bed inn has its own sumptuous spa, a challenging golf course, and twenty-six tennis courts. You are equally charmed if you’re billeted at KESWICK HALL (701 Club Dr., Keswick; 434-979-3440), which sits about ten miles southeast of town. It’s a 600-acre retreat that epitomizes Charlottesville’s gentle pleasures. There’s a placid spa and fitness center and an Arnold Palmer golf course. But Keswick Hall’s most seductive draw is sunset on the hotel’s wide rear veranda. Settle in with a cool drink as evening gathers across the Piedmont beyond: You’ll never forget it. Afternoon on the town Late afternoon finds the city in full blaze. Though it’s a city of a mere forty-five thousand, the place loves its festivals. Late October into early November brings the VIRGINIA FILM FESTIVAL (434-982-5277), which for two decades has made Charlottesville a Hollywood player, with film premieres and a flood tide of Hollywood actors and producers in for screenings and parties. Then, March brings the VIRGINIA FESTIVAL OF THE BOOK (434-924-6890), luring hundreds of authors and thousands of visitors to a five-day confab on all things literary; and in mid-June comes the FESTIVAL OF THE PHOTOGRAPH (434-977-3687), which overtakes the town with photo images: Huge blowups dangle from trees above the Downtown Mall. The last Saturday in April and the last Sunday in September visitors can take in the FOXFIELD RACES (2215 Foxfield Track; 434-293-9501), a series of equine steeplechases held on a large and rolling farm. Between the vistas, the thundering horses, and the crowds, Foxfield days are a Clan C’ville collective rite. Not everything here is a social mash-up, however. A dozen miles west of town is SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK (3655 Hwy. 211 E., Luray; 540-999-3500), an enormous wilderness networked by hiking trails leading to waterfalls, trout streams, and scenic overlooks. Views across the spreading Piedmont and into the Shenandoah Valley are knee-buckling. Last stop of the day is at the town’s beating heart. At the eastern end of the Downtown Mall is the CHARLOTTESVILLE PAVILION (434-245-4910; charlottesvillepavilion.com), which, every Friday evening from mid-April to September, anchors Fridays After Five, a free-concert series showcasing everything from rock to salsa, regional blues, country, folk, big band, and reggae. Between the music, food, and drinks it is a C’ville social pillar. Drinks and Dinner For a cooling beverage—not to mention a visit to a local legend—stop by MILLER'S (109 W. Main St., on the Downtown Mall; 434-971-8511). With its carved mahogany walls, tile floors, and pressed-tin ceiling, it may qualify as Charlottesville’s best bar. Back in the nineties it was home to a chatty expressionist painter/bartender named Dave Matthews. Given this confluence, you can understand why the place enjoys mythic status. Finally, if you’re going to have one haute meal in Charlottesville, OXO (215 W. Water St.; 434-977-8111) is it, with up-to-the-nanosecond American interpretations of classic French fare all done to perfection by chef-owner John Haywood. There’s a terrific bar and wine list, too. It’s as close to a perfect meal as you can get, and it somehow balances the comfortably familiar and the constantly evolving, all at a seemingly effortless pace. |
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