Start from 23 curated places around Lexington, VA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Zunzun
The successor to the celebrated Red Hen, Zunzun occupies the same 11 East Washington Street address and continues the tradition of serious locally sourced cooking — now in a shareable small-plates and tapas format with craft cocktails and a lounge atmosphere. The menu changes frequently based on what's in season, and the team behind it is the same one that earned the predecessor its regional James Beard attention.
Southern Inn Restaurant
A downtown Lexington institution in a building dating to 1828, serving Southern-influenced New American cuisine surrounded by colorful modern art contrasted against the historic bones of the room. It's the classic date-night downtown restaurant that's been around long enough to have fed generations of VMI cadets and W&L alumni.
Trails & outdoors
Chessie Nature Trail
A seven-mile flat rail trail along the former Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad bed, following the Maury River between Lexington and Buena Vista through pastoral farmland, forest, and limestone outcrops. Owned by VMI and open to the public, it's the town's beloved easy walk — suitable for all fitness levels with the river alongside for much of the way.
Cedar Creek Trail to Lace Falls
The main trail in Natural Bridge State Park, starting at the visitor center and passing under the 215-foot arch before continuing through the gorge to Saltpeter Cave, Lost River, and the 30-foot Lace Falls cascade. It's only 2.1 miles round-trip but passes through terrain that earns its reputation as one of the most scenic short hikes in western Virginia.
Things to do
Theatre at Lime Kiln
A 675-seat outdoor amphitheater set inside a former 19th-century lime quarry on the edge of Lexington, with stone-walled ruins as the backdrop for summer concerts, musicals, and theater productions. The acoustics in the limestone bowl are famously good, and the setting — lit torches against rough stone walls after dark — makes even a so-so show feel special.
VMI Museum
The first public museum in the Commonwealth of Virginia, housed in Jackson Memorial Hall on the VMI campus, with 15,000 military history artifacts spanning from the Mexican-American War to the present. The centerpiece is Little Sorrel, Stonewall Jackson's horse, preserved after the general's death and still on display with surprisingly moving effect.
Landmarks & sights
Virginia Military Institute (VMI) Campus
America's first state-supported military college, founded in 1839, sits on one of the most striking campuses in the South — the Gothic-inspired barracks and parade ground rise dramatically above the town. The VMI Museum inside Jackson Memorial Hall is the first public museum in Virginia's history and houses 15,000 military artifacts, including Little Sorrel, Stonewall Jackson's beloved horse (preserved in full).
Washington and Lee University
The ninth-oldest university in the country, founded 1749, with a colonnaded main campus that looks like a painting of what a Virginia liberal arts college should look like. Lee Chapel on campus is a National Historic Landmark where Robert E. Lee's tomb and Edward Valentine's famous Recumbent Lee statue are housed, along with Lee's preserved president's office.