Does the cold weather have you down? Head to one of these fun Virginia venues to enjoy live music or a little bit of dancing. It’s the perfect way to shake the winter blahs and get hyped for spring.

The Banque, Norfolk

Live Music

Hampton’s Marker 20 is a casual seafood restaurant in the Arts District, but Friday nights heat up with local and regional acts.

Looking for bigger names in music? Head to Phase 2 in Lynchburg where the likes of Orgy, Colt Ford, John Michael Montgomery and Corey Smith have been known to play.

Donk’s Theater in Mathews is the country music lover’s place to be. Called “Virginia’s Little Ole Opry,” Donk’s offers a lively show every other Saturday night.

Tap your toes or clog along The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail at venues like Floyd Country Store, Carter Family Fold in Hiltons or Rex Theater in Galax.

Night Clubs

• Canal Club, Richmond
• Luckie’s, Hampton
• Peabody’s NightClub, Virginia Beach
• Skinifatz Nightspot, Lorton
• three., Charlottesville – Thursday-Saturday dance parties

Karaoke

Looking for your turn at the mic? Check out Mel’s Place in Virginia Beach, Ten Pin Cafe in Martinsville or Karaoke at Rose Hill in Rose Hill.

Learn to Dance

If you’ve ever wanted to learn country line dancing, check out The Banque in Norfolk where the lessons are free every Wednesday through Friday night. Already know how? Go join the fun and shake what your mama gave ya.

Bigger Venues

Watch for your favorite national artist to arrive at Virginia’s larger indoor venues:

• John Paul Jones Arena, Charlottesville
• Roanoke Civic Center, Roanoke
• Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach
• The Birchmere, Alexandria
• The National, Richmond
• The NorVA, Norfolk
• The Barns at Wolf Trap, Vienna

Go get your groove on and warm up for the great spring ahead. Find more nightlife at Virginia.org.

LOVE is at the heart of every Virginia vacation. Virginia is for Lovers.
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Some art adventures are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. I mean, who doesn’t want to see an authentic Michelangelo? While we can’t move the Louvre to Virginia, we can certainly bring a little bit of Louvre-level, iconic art here.

Madonna and Child by Michelangelo, Florence, Casa Buonarroti

Between now and April 14, Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane is on display at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg. It’s a rich and varied collection of 26 drawings straight from his family home in Florence, Italy, Casa Buonarroti. Several pieces of this collection are on display for the very first time in the United States; be one of the first to see the master’s work for just $15 per person.

Of Michelangelo’s piece to the right, the Muscarelle Museum of Art writes, “Throughout his career, Michelangelo (1475-1564) alternated between interpretations of the divine and the worldly, or profane. The master’s powers to evoke the sacred are fully displayed in the large drawing “Virgin and Child,” which is one of Michelangelo’s most admired images. The statuesque figures of the child is contrasted to the expressive freedom of the Madonna’s face, which appears to see the future with foreboding.”

~ If You Go ~

Lodging

• Cedars of Williamsburg Bed & Breakfast (0.1 mi.)
• Inn at 802 Bed & Breakfast (0.3 mi.)
• A Williamsburg Sampler Bed and Breakfast Inn (0.4 mi.)
• Hilton Garden Inn Williamsburg (0.4 mi.)
• A Williamsburg White House Bed and Breakfast (0.4 mi.)

Dining

• The Crust Cafe (0.4 mi.)
• Cafe Provencal (0.4 mi.)
• Jungle Jim’s Bar & Eatery (0.4 mi.)
• Berret’s Seafood Restaurant & Taphouse Grill (0.4 mi.)

More to See

• Williamsburg Winery (0.4 mi.)
• The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg (0.5 mi.)
• Virginia Premiere Theatre (0.5 mi.)
• Colonial Williamsburg (1.2 mi.)

LOVE is at the heart of every Virginia vacation. Virginia is for Lovers.
Request a free Travel Guide. 

Innovation 2012 is the theme of this year’s Wintergreen Performing Arts Summer Music Festival, set to kick off Friday, July 6 and run through Sunday, August 5. The focus of innovation will include innovators – both familiar and unfamiliar – who have moved us in new directions in dance, music, theatre, film, food, wine and the visual arts.

From a musical standpoint, attendees to these events can expect to hear the works of Ludwig van Beethoven  as well as brand new pieces written by student composers in settings that vary from the Evans Center at Wintergreen Resort to the Big Red Barn at Rodes Farm in Nellysford. From classical and intimate to new and center stage, there’s a setting and a performance for everyone.

Gisele and Fabio Witkowski perform August 1 at Wintergreen Resort's Evans Center

Key Events

• 7/6: Opening Night Reception and Performance
• 7/7 and 7/8: Classics – Anton Bruckner, Remo Pignoni, Carlos Guastavino, Pedro Saenz and Paul Schoenfield
• 7/8: Coffee Concert – Michel Richard de Lalande, Bohulsav Martinu, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Theobald Boehm and Charles Ives
• 7/11: Wild Wednesday – Astor Piazzolla
• 7/12: Barn Bach – Johann Sebastian Bach
• 7/13: Chamber Music – David MacBride, Joseph Haydn, Michael White, Igor Stravinsky and Robert Schumann
• 7/15: Coffee Classics – Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy, Edgard Varese, MacBride and Charles Martin Loeffler
• 7/18: Wild Wednesday – Jazz – influences of Thelonius Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and more.
• 7/19: Mozart’s Magical Mystery Tour
• 7/21: Under the Big Top: A Happening
• 7/21 and 7/22: Classics – Schumann, Joseph Rheinberger, Charles Gounod
• 7/22: Coffee Concert – Eric Ewazen, MacBride, Schumann
• 7/23: Art Song and Opera - Johannes Brahms, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Frideric Handel, Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner
• 7/25: Wild Wednesday – Jazz – influences of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and more.
• 7/28 and 7/29: Classics – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Brahms
• 7/29: Coffee Classics – Ewazen and Debussy
• 7/30-8/4: Where Chaos Sleeps – World Premiere of the play by Peter Coy.
• 7/31: Barn Bach – Bach
• 8/1: Wild Wednesday – Edvard Grieg, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Barber, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Francisco Mignone
• 8/2: Thrilling Thursday – Bowen McCauley Dance presents “Lucy’s Local Playlist,” choreography inspired by the music of ten Greater Washington, DC bands and artists.
• 8/4 and 8/5: Classics – Bowen McCauley Dance presents choreography to Beethoven, Max Bruch and Stravinsky.
• 8/5: Coffee Classics – Featuring the Academy Chamber Players and Academy String Orchestra under the direction of Joseph J. Nigro, guest conductor.

Download the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival Ticket Booklet for a complete schedule and details.

LOVE is at the heart of every Virginia vacation. Virginia is for Lovers.
Request a free Virginia Travel Guide.

Moms and dads, are you looking for something fun, creative, energy-burning, and awesome for your kid(s) to do this summer? Boredom is killer. Feels like just yesterday I was on a reading marathon for the duration of summer. Not that there’s a thing wrong with reading all summer, but, ya know. A kid’s gotta play sometime.

Marine Science Consortium

Enough about my summers and more about yours. What’s the plan for your tikes and/or big kids? There are summer camps for nearly anything they have an interest in, so let’s get to it.

On Virginia.org we have a handy set of articles that detail Arts & Music, History, Outdoors, and Sports camps (as they’ve been brought to our attention). Jump on over there to get the whole hog, but here are a few that I especially like and hope that you will find interesting, too.

If your child enjoys playing in the dirt or has a fondness for hunting buried “treasures,” perhaps the Diggin in History Archaeology Camp at the Chesterfield Historical Society would be an apt camp for him or her. Kids 8-12 will be taught the proper use of tools, how to set up a site for a dig (can’t you imagine your backyard now?), excavation techniques, and more. They’ll have the chance to examine historical digs and take a trip to Petersburg National Battlefield. $95/student.

What child has not dreamed of flight? It seems to be in our DNA that we’d like to soar as the birds do. At the Virginia Space Flight Academy on Wallops Island, your little space cadet can explore model rocketry, robotics and flight simulation. As if that’s not cool enough, field trips include visits to NASA’s Range Control Center, Payload Testing & Assembly Center, launch sites, and more. Students should be 11 to 15 years old. Six one-week all-inclusive overnight camp sessions are available beginning July 1. $795/student.

The Latin Ballet invites kids 5 to 16 to put on their dancing shoes for some ballet, Latin jazz, modern and hip-hop classes. Kids will also have a chance to try their hands at percussion. Who doesn’t want to bang a drum? The camp is broken into three two-week sessions (9 AM to 4 PM), July 9-August 17, at either the Cultural Arts Center in Glen Allen or Richmond Center Stage in Richmond. $325/session.

New Market Battlefield State Historical Park

A variety of Civil War camps are available all across Virginia all summer long. From Newport News to New Market, up to Bristow and back to Petersburg, your little soldiers can get schooled on battlefield life as well as the roles of those who were left at home. Camps begin as soon as June 23 and run into October, if need some weekend adventure plans. Rates begin at $70/person.

Do you have a drama queen in your house? Maybe the Living Storybook Drama Camp is just what she needs to channel her inner diva. Held at the Spencer Penn Centre in Henry County July 23-27 from 10 AM to 2 PM, the week culminates in a recital on Friday where the one-day-Academy-Award-winners will deliver their lines with grace. $90/student.

Hang ten with the big boys (and girls) when you take up one of the righteous Billabong surf camps at Virginia Beach. The chicas have their turn in one of four two-day sessions (July 12-August 15) with the dudes choosing one of eight three-day sessions (June 20-August 15). Girls are $110; boys are $160.

Budding culinaristas have a chance to take classes spun from hit television shows – Cupcake Wars, Ace of Cakes, and Top Chef sound familiar? In Martinsville at The Artisan Center, kids can participate in their own cook-offs and bake-offs. Camps begin June 18 and are 8:30-11:30 AM. $55/student.

If dolphins melt your heart, the Marine Science Consortium on Wallops Island must be your summer destination. Three-to-five day all-inclusive overnight camps range from coastal mammals and fish to dangerous creatures. Campers should be 10 to 15 years old, depending on the session chosen. Camps are $299-$599/student and start as soon as June 24. See all available camps.

There are dozens more where these came from, so go check ‘em out.
Arts & Music * History * Outdoors * Sports

LOVE is at the heart of every Virginia vacation. Virginia is for Lovers.
>> Request your free Virginia Travel Guide, then go to any Virginia Welcome Center for a thank you gift! <<

If you’re on the hunt for handmade treasures why not throw in a scenic drive and make a weekend of it? Virginia’s artisan trails are immense. Each trail highlights Virginia’s beauty captured in virtually any medium of your choice, as well as right in front of your eyes.

Heartwood: Southwest Virginia's Artisan Gateway

Southwest Virginia’s Artisan Network is known as ‘Round the Mountain. The network claims 19 counties and four cities’ worth of studios, galleries, vineyards, and more. It’s important to note that The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail intersects and may, in fact, run the same course occasionally as the ‘Round the Mountain trail network, so lend an ear while you treat your eyes.

To make the ‘Round the Mountain network easier to navigate, the system is broken up into smaller trails.

From the west and bordering Kentucky and Tennessee is the Wilderness Road Artisan Trail encompassing Lee and Scott Counties. North of that are the Lonesome Pine (Wise County) and  Rivers to Ridges (Dickenson and Buchanan Counties) artisan trails. Creeping west toward the Clinch River and named for it is the Clinch River Artisan Trail of Tazewell and Russell Counties.

Marty Dunn, an artisan at Cave Arts in Abingdon, weaves a basket. Photo by CameronDavidson @CameronDavidson.com.

The Interstate 81 corridor is a busy one. Hop off the rat race and see these trails with much to offer. In Montgomery County (Blacksburg) is the Montgomery County Artisan Trail, but if you venture just west you’ll also encounter the artisans of the Giles Art & Adventure Trail. Moving south along I81 is the New River Artisan Trail in Pulaski, Mountain Crossroads in Bland County and Wytheville, Smyth County Artisan Trail in Saltville, and Countryside Artisan Trail in Abingdon, Damascus, and Bristol. While you’re in Abingdon, check out Heartwood: Southwest Virginia’s Artisan Gateway. In reality, it’s a great place to kick off the whole adventure!

If you’re already off the beaten path and perhaps traversing the captivating Blue Ridge Parkway, you’ll find artisans all around you. Beginning in Franklin County around Rocky Mount, you’ll be in the middle of the White Lightning Artisan Trail (yes, THAT kind of white lightning).

As you move south into the front-porch jam town of Floyd, you’ll also be in the midst of great art on the Floyd County Trail. Harmony Trail goes into Carroll County and the Hillsville area. Southwest is the Woven Mountains and River Bends Trail of Grayson County along the North Carolina border. Back to the east is the last trail of the network – Hidden Treasures - in Stuart and Patrick County.

As if those trails aren’t enough, the rest of Virginia boasts some art, too. Venture the Discover the Arts Trail in Hampton Roads. It highlights 35 visual arts and 16 performing arts venues around the Historic Triangle.

In Nelson and Albemarle Counties you’ll find the Monticello Artisan Trail. With the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop to agriculture and history, the arts along this trail will fulfill a wide array of tastes.

To  the west and spanning Staunton, August and Waynesboro is The HeART and Soil of the Shenandoah Valley. A world-class theatre in the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse gives this particular trail a little oomph.

Lastly, the Western Highlands Artisan Trail includes Alleghany, Bath, Craig, and Highland Counties. From The Homestead to beautiful Humpback Bridge and famous maple syrup, this trail has tremendous scenic value in addition to the handmade arts.

Visit Virginia.org/ArtisanTrails to download trail brochures and plan your trip. LOVE is at the heart of every Virginia vacation.