Fort Monroe

We left Norfolk and traveled all of 5 miles across the mouth of the James river to the Old Point Comfort harbor where Fort Monroe is located. Fort Monroe is a pre-civil war fort that guards the entrance to the James river and the vital navel ports of Norfolk and Portsmouth. It is the largest stone fort ever built in the USA and encloses about 63 acres and has a moat!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Monroe

The fort use to be an active army military command but now is open to the public. They have a very good museum built into the walls of the fort and many displays from the past. A very interesting stop if your into military history.  

view from the top of the fort

I didn't try to pick one up

This thing is huge!

Right across the mouth of the James is yet another fort, Fort Wool. This companion fort was built up on a shoal in the middle of the James and at one time was referred to as “Fort Rip-Rap” since an artificial island was created there by dumping stone into the water until they had an island big enough to build a fort on. It was used for over 100 years (until the end of WWII). The interesting thing about Fort Wool is even though it's the property of the national parks system and can only be accessed by boat, it is unstaffed and you can wander around at will to see the ruins.

They never finished Fort Wool (the rip-rap-island was sinking under the weight of the stone building)

Even though it wasn't finished it was still an impressive ruin to wander thru.

Both forts were great to see and made an excellent stop on the way north. Now, if we hadn’t picked up a crab pot in the process it would have been even better… Boy is that water cold!