If you get a chance to go to Gettysburg for a weekend or longer, I would highly recommend making the trip.
Veronica and I visited this past weekend from Friday to Sunday, staying at a great “Bed and Breakfast” in the area called Lightner Farmhouse. We enjoyed getting some quality time together and exploring the area.
Gettysburg has so much history that it would be almost impossible to see every site or do everything that’s recommended, but almost anything you do can be worthwhile. I had some basic high school background information about Gettysburg, but I left feeling like I gained a lot of knowledge and wisdom.
So why visit Gettysburg?
Well, Veronica and I only did a tidbit of everything you can do there, but here are some of our personal highlights and recommendations.
1- Go to the National Park Visitor Center and get tickets for the film/cyclorama/museum. This was most of our Saturday morning, but we are happy we paid for this. The film was narrated by Morgan Freeman, the cyclorama is this massive panoramic image of the battle, and finally we spent over an hour in the museum because of how much information there was to read.
2- Explore the battlefield landmarks. You can sign up for a tour from a battlefield expert or do a self-guided tour, but after spending so much time at the museum, we decided to pick some landmarks on our own. We drove to some different spots and enjoyed the freedom to pick and choose what seemed most interesting to us.
3- Walk around the town center and eat out if you can. We visited different stores and shops and ate out both nights, one night at an Irish pub and the other at a local restaurant. Both meals were excellent.
4- Try a “Bed and Breakfast” if you want something other than a typical hotel experience. The Lightner Farmhouse had a lot of it’s own history and the food was delicious both mornings.
5- Take the free cemetery tour at 5:30 pm. This was Veronica’s favorite part as a licensed guide led us around the cemetery and shared inspiring, gut-wrenching, and informative stories from the battle and what happened afterward with the cemetery.
I think many of us today, myself included, have a hard time imagining just how brutal and hellish war can be. One thing that stuck out to me was that for every soldier that died in battle during the Civil War, two died from disease. This points to the horrific conditions at the time and offers some insight into just how life-changing wars can be for everyone involved. I find it difficult to ponder on all the families that lost loved ones and all the soldiers who were wounded significantly and what life after the war must of been like.
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