Mount Vernon Tour and Potomac River Cruise

My friend Nancy is a big admirer of George Washington and has season tickets to Mount Vernon. She received special tickets to tour the basement of Mount Vernon and could bring some guests, so she invited us.

This is a neat stained glass window with a scene from the Revolutionary War in the visitor's center at Mount Vernon.

Kent and I have been to Mount Vernon many times but had never been on the basement tour.

This is basically the view of the hallway that goes under the house.

Here's one of the symbols from the last 1700's on the masonry on the support beams.

One of the reason there's a basement tour at Mount Vernon is because it was featured in the second "National Treasure" movie, so Kent and I watched it the night before.

Another very exciting difference between this house tour of Mount Vernon and all the other tours we've taken is that picture taking was allowed!
The next three photos were taken in the largest room in the house, used as an assembly room.

These are close up photos of the marble fireplace in the large room.

Pictured below is the key to the Bastille in Paris, that was given to George Washington by Lafayette after the French Revolution in 1789. Cool, right?

       

                        
The dining room is below.

One of the guest bedrooms, which has recently been refurbished.

Another guest room, with a baby cradle.

This was George and Martha's bedroom,

 where George Washington passed away in 1799. 

Below are two views of George Washington's office and library.

  

                              
This is the view of the Potomac River seen from the back of Mount Vernon.

Another thing we did this visit that we've never done before is to take a Potomac River cruise that left from Mount Vernon. Here we are on the deck of the boat.

This is one of the views of Mount Vernon from the river.

Another view of Mount Vernon from farther down the wide river.

On the Maryland side and down some, of the Potomac, is Fort Washington, a fort built in 1809 to protect the city of Washington, DC, and is now part of a park. We've never been there.

We're very lucky to live so close to such an amazing historical home!!