Central Virginia

Central Virginia covers a broad swath of the Piedmont running from the Blue Ridge foothills east to the fall line at Richmond, then south through tobacco country toward the North Carolina border. The terrain is gentle — wooded ridges, river valleys cut by the James and the Roanoke, and farmland that thickens westward into orchard country at the foot of the mountains. Thirty counties make up the region. Albemarle holds Monticello and the orbit of Charlottesville at the northwestern edge; Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover ring Richmond at the center; Campbell, Bedford, and Amherst sit around Lynchburg; Appomattox holds the courthouse where the Civil War ended; Prince Edward anchors Farmville and the civil rights history at the Robert Russa Moton Museum; Pittsylvania, Halifax, and Mecklenburg run south to the Roanoke River reservoirs. Trips here usually stitch together a few small cities and a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway approach. The Monticello and University of Virginia loop near Charlottesville, the museum quarter and historic neighborhoods of Richmond, Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, and the Smith Mountain Lake reservoir behind Bedford handle most of the visitor traffic. Spring and fall are the easy seasons; summer humidity is real.