PAST IS PRESENT A VISIT TO THREE OF VIRGINIA'S GREAT HISTORIC ATTRACTIONS YIELDS A MIX OF INSIGHT AND INCONGRUITY.(TRAVEL)

Byline: MICHAEL JANAIRO STAFF WRITER

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to break from daily routine, nothing beats travel through space and time. My traveling companions, Deborah and her son Max, and I went to Virginia to do just that, spurred on by a project Max did for his third-grade class on our third president, Thomas Jefferson.

As we toured Charlottesville, Va., Monticello and Colonial Williamsburg, we found ourselves moving deeper into history. Even the drive, especially along unexpectedly picturesque Interstate 81, took us past places whose names evoked the past: Gettysburg, Antietam and Harper's Ferry.

Our first stop was Charlottesville, nine hours from Albany. We dined in the city's ``historic'' downtown: a closed-off street filled with restaurants and shops that were firmly grounded in the 21st century.

About a mile away, though, was the University of Virginia, which Jefferson founded in 1819. The red-brick buildings of the ``academical village,'' especially the Rotunda with its gleaming white dome and tall marble columns, gave us a taste of what awaited at Monticello.

Monticello

The next day, a gloriously sunny and warm spring day, we drove about two miles outside Charlottesville to Jefferson's home, Monticello. Designed, built and remodeled between 1784 and 1809, it looked like a model of the Rotunda.

We had to wait nearly two hours for a tour, so we strolled through …