The cobblestone streets of Alexandria, Virginia were measured by a teenager named George Washington

Old Town’s cobblestones lead straight to history

Eight miles from Washington, D.C., Old Town Alexandria sits along the Potomac like it never got the memo that the 18th century ended.

Scottish and English merchants petitioned Virginia’s colonial lawmakers to plant a trading town here in 1749, and the young man they sent to survey the original 60-acre layout was 17-year-old George Washington.

Three centuries later, you can still walk the streets he measured.

The waterfront, the taverns, the cobblestone alleys — it’s all still there, and most of it still works.

A tobacco port that became one of America’s busiest

By the late 1700s, Alexandria ranked among the busiest ports in America.

Ships loaded with tobacco left from these docks, and the town took its name from the Alexander family, who owned the land before the merchants arrived.

The town became the nation’s third locally designated historic district in 1946, behind only New Orleans and Charleston.

That designation means the buildings you see on King Street today are the same ones that stood when Washington rode through on horseback.

Walk King Street from the Metro to the river

King Street runs a flat, walkable mile from the Potomac waterfront all the way to the King Street-Old Town Metro station, and you could spend a full afternoon on it without leaving the block.

The American Planning Association put it on the short list of America’s great streets, and it earns the label.

More than 200 independently owned restaurants and boutiques line both sides, packed into brick storefronts with old iron lampposts out front.

If your feet give out, the free King Street Trolley picks up every 15 minutes, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week.

The WWII torpedo factory now holds 82 artist studios

The building at 105 N. Union St. spent the first half of the 20th century making weapons.

Constructed in 1918 as a U.S. Naval Torpedo Station, it turned out Mark XIV torpedoes during World War II, then spent the postwar years storing congressional documents, Smithsonian dinosaur bones, and records from the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

In 1974, Alexandria converted it into an art center for the city’s bicentennial.

Walk in today and you’ll find 82 working studios, seven galleries, and more than 150 juried artists. Any studio with an open door, you can walk straight in.

Five presidents drank at Gadsby’s Tavern

Two buildings make up Gadsby’s Tavern Museum: a circa 1785 tavern and a 1792 City Hotel, both constructed by John Wise. Englishman John Gadsby took over the lease in 1796 and ran it until 1808, and the name stuck.

Washington attended Birthnight Balls in his honor in the upstairs ballroom in 1798 and 1799. Jefferson held his inaugural banquet here in 1801.

Adams, Madison, and Monroe all came through.

The complex earned National Historic Landmark status in 1963, and you can still eat in the dining room today.

The apothecary that closed during the Depression and never changed

Edward Stabler, a Quaker pharmacist, opened this apothecary in 1792. The shop ran continuously from 1805 until the Great Depression forced it to close in 1933.

Nobody cleaned it out. The hand-blown glass bottles, the herbal botanicals, the medical equipment — all of it stayed on the same shelves where it sat the day the doors closed.

Martha Washington and Robert E. Lee were customers here. The Gothic Revival shelving inside is a rare mid-19th-century commercial example of the style.

The building earned National Historic Landmark status in 2021.

Captain’s Row is the oldest cobblestone block in the city

The 100 block of Prince Street goes by Captain’s Row, and it looks the part.

Captain John Harper built many of the Federal-style townhouses along this stretch in the late 1700s, and you’ll notice details that most streets lost long ago.

Stone mounting blocks still stand at the curb, left over from the days when people arrived on horseback.

Look up at the building facades and you’ll spot star bolts, the metal anchors that kept masonry walls from buckling, and fire mark seals that early insurance companies put on homes they covered.

Washington’s church and the war council at Carlyle House

Christ Church went up between 1767 and 1773 and has held services every week since. Washington was a vestryman, and his family pew is still there.

The church earned National Historic Landmark status in 1970.

Two blocks away, Carlyle House is a Georgian stone mansion completed in 1753 by Scottish merchant John Carlyle, and it holds a distinction the outline makes clear: it’s the only stone 18th-century Palladian-style residence in Alexandria.

In 1755, British General Braddock gathered five colonial governors inside to plan the campaigns of the French and Indian War.

The 333-foot memorial modeled after an ancient Egyptian lighthouse

From the top of Shooter’s Hill, the George Washington Masonic National Memorial looks out over Old Town and the Potomac.

Its tower was modeled after the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, and it stands 333 feet tall. Construction started in 1922 and the building was dedicated in 1932.

It earned National Historic Landmark status in 2015.

Ride up to the observation deck on the ninth floor and you get 360-degree views of Alexandria and Washington, D.C. Inside, the museum covers Washington’s life and the history of American Freemasonry.

Walk, bike, or ride the 18-mile trail along the Potomac

The Mount Vernon Trail runs 18 miles along the Virginia side of the Potomac, connecting George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate to Theodore Roosevelt Island near D.C. About 5.6 miles of that route pass through Alexandria, cutting through waterfront parks, wetlands, and stretches of forest with the D.C. monuments visible across the water.

It’s one of the most-traveled sections of the 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway, which runs from Maine to Florida. Runners, cyclists, and walkers all share the paved path, and you can pick it up right at the waterfront.

Alexandria’s farmers’ market has been running since 1753

Market Square has held a marketplace since 1753, which puts it among the oldest continuously operating market sites in the country. Washington sent produce down from Mount Vernon to sell here.

The Saturday morning farmers’ market still runs year-round, with local and regional vendors setting up fruit, vegetables, bread, cheese, and meat.

The square sits next to Alexandria City Hall, which has a Second Empire-style clocktower built from an 1817 design by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the architect of the U.S. Capitol.

Follow a lantern through dark alleys after nightfall

Alexandria’s ghost tours have been running for 50 years, long enough to be among the oldest in the country.

After dark, costumed guides carry lanterns and walk groups through the cobblestone alleys, stopping at real locations tied to the stories: the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary, the waterfront docks, and buildings that saw the city’s full arc from colonial port to Civil War occupation to political crossroads.

The history here runs deep enough that the legends have had centuries to accumulate.

Getting to Old Town Alexandria, Virginia

You can reach Old Town without a car. The King Street-Old Town Metro station sits on both the Blue and Yellow lines, about eight miles south of Washington, D.C., and the free King Street Trolley runs from there to the waterfront every 15 minutes.

From the waterfront, water taxis connect to D.C., Georgetown, and National Harbor.

If you want to keep going south, George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate sits nine miles away, reachable by car, by bike on the Mount Vernon Trail, or by boat. Start at the Alexandria Visitor Center at 221 King St., open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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