"The Wild Wild West" a Virginia City Travel Page by Camping_Girl

We stopped in Virginia City and Nevada City in August 2005 on our way back from Disneyland. We thought it would be a good rest stop for an hour or so. Boy, were we wrong! We ended up spending the whole day there!

Virginia City is a real town with original buildings. It is the original capital of Montana, and was founded during the gold rush. You can check out their website at www.virginiacity.com

The buildings are incredible, complete with employees in period costumes. You can take a stagecoach ride or a steam engine train ride. There are a great many gift shops to tour through, as well as 2 jewellery stores selling hand-made jewellery with locally mined gold and silver. We loved the Ellis Gold Exchange - thanks again to Mark for his friendly, expert service both during and after the sale - we'd buy jewellery from you again in a heartbeat! Our kids loved the rock shop, which featured everything from fossils to polished semi-precious stones.

The ice cream shop sells the best home-made ice cream I have ever tasted. The candy shop sells wonderful sweets. You can watch salt water taffy being made through the front window.

The opera house still has performances in the evenings. We stopped into the local pub briefly at the end of our tour. The children are allowed in the pubs in Montana, and ours had a great time playing pool and eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor! There are several b&b's in town, as well as a hotel.

If you take the train ride in Virginia City, it goes to Nevada City and back. I wasn't nearly as impressed with Nevada City - you pay a fee to enter the "town", and all of the buildings have been moved here from somewhere else. But the train yard and round house there were very interesting.

While you're in the vicinity of Virginia City you may want to check out the town of Ennis, about a 1/2 hour drive east, as well. We really enjoy the "wild west" look and feel of Ennis. And we always stop at the restaurant downtown on main street (I think its called the Ennis Cafe) for breakfast when we're in town. They have great food, huge portions and really good prices.

Our kids thought this place was the greatest. After all, they live in Canada, where kids aren't even allowed to look into a tavern window, let alone walk into one!

This pub has a great atmosphere, the staff is friendly and so are the locals. The beer was cold, plentiful and relatively cheap. (for a tourist town) We enjoyed visiting with other tourists from all over the world.

Next time we'll go back without the kids, and take in the entertainment later in the evening!

Here is another pic of some of the buildings on Main Street. This one is the old post office and the candy shop.

If you check out the travelogue section towards the bottom of this page, you will find more pictures of Virginia City.

Thanks for stopping by!