I knew very little about James Madison before this...

I knew very little about James Madison before this trip. I was particularly impressed with how the Montpelier Foundation has incorporated the descendants of the Madison family's enslaved people into the exhibits. They do a great job of confronting the reality and difficulty of studying historical figures like Madison, who on the one hand was a brilliant and broad-minded intellectual, and on the other hand owned actual people. Like Washington, he never set any of his slaves free.

If you have kids, make sure you do the kid-friendly tour. They were not offering the kid-friendly tour on the day we went, and our tour was extremely dry for our group, considering 8 out of the 10 of us were under the age of 10. They do have the very ingenious addition of a room at the end of the tour filled with period toys and furniture that can be played with and touched. The visitor center also has some good interactive stuff and a couple short films.