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Photo: David from Richmond, Virginia, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A wealthy landowner donated his estate to the city, and Richmond turned it into one of the most beautiful urban parks in the nation. Fountains, Italianate gardens, and a Japanese tea garden are a pleasure to walk through. The nature center here is all-encompassing and free, and its exhibits on Virginia Wildlife include two otters who are glad to show off for visitors. Gray foxes, red-tailed hawks, and other exhibits are located outside. Kids like the farm area, where sheep, lambs, chickens, and other sundry animals are exhibited.
Maymont is a 100-acre (40 ha) Victorian estate and public park in Richmond, Virginia. It contains Maymont Mansion, now a historic house museum, an arboretum, an Italian and Japanese garden, a carriage collection, native wildlife exhibits, a nature center, and a petting zoo.
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There are fishing lakes, seasonal paddle boats, a fitness trail and the Dogwood Dell Amphitheater, home to the Summer Festival of Arts. The park abuts Maymount at the end of the Boulevard.
Located between the neighborhoods of Oregon Hill and Randolph on a bluff overlooking the James, Presidents Tyler and Monroe have their final resting places here. So does the locally renowned Jefferson Davis, and it's worth the trip through winding roads to see reverent Southerns laying flags on his grave. Also in the cemetery are Confederate Generals George Pickett and J.E.B. Stuart and local authors James Branch Cabell and Ellen Glasgow. The lines of small headstones marking the mass graves of Confederate dead is truly an eerie and powerful sight.
Richmond National Battlefield Headquarters at Tredegar
The site of a Civil War-era iron foundery which supplied ordinance to the Confederate Army. The American Civil War Center aims to be the definitive museum on interpretation of the conflaguration from all perspectives. Also on the grounds are a statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son Todd.
This art gallery used to be an old fire station. In addition to art, they have an antique steam engine, a library, and a craft shop,.
Downtown art gallery and performing arts center that hosts touring and local indie rock.