What to See in Charlottesville, United States: Free Audio Guide

The best things to do in Charlottesville include exploring historic religious buildings, restored theaters, live-music venues, and places connected to the city’s recent history. A visit offers a chance to experience Charlottesville’s cultural life while also reflecting on the events that have shaped its community. Neywo has a free audio guide for Charlottesville with 7 narrated places.

What to See in Charlottesville

The places below are among the stops covered by Neywo’s Charlottesville guide, moving through the city’s cultural landmarks and significant sites.

Virginia Discovery Museum

The Virginia Discovery Museum is a children’s science museum where young visitors can explore through hands-on discovery and curiosity. It offers a family-focused way to experience Charlottesville’s educational and cultural life.

Congregation Beth Israel

At 301 East Jefferson Street, Congregation Beth Israel—also known as Temple Beth Israel—is a Reform Jewish synagogue. Its history reflects the development of Jewish community life in Charlottesville: the congregation was founded in 1882, with roots reaching back to the Charlottesville Hebrew Benevolent Society, established in 1870.

Delevan Baptist Church

Delevan Baptist Church is also known as First Baptist Church and First Colored Baptist Church. This historic African American Baptist church has stood on West Main Street since 1883.

Its Victorian Romanesque design gives the building a distinctive appearance. The one-story brick church has a raised basement, a three-bay by six-bay layout, and a projecting square tower. Above the tower is a large octagonal lantern on a square wooden base. Delevan Baptist Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and is part of the Fifeville and Tonsler Neighborhoods Historic District.

Paramount Theater

The Paramount Theater is one of Charlottesville’s landmark entertainment venues. Designed by Rapp and Rapp, it opened in 1931 as a movie theater and continued showing films for more than four decades before closing in 1974.

The building’s story continued when community members purchased it in 1990 and formed a nonprofit corporation. They then raised funds to restore and expand the theater, which now operates as a performing arts venue.

The Jefferson Theater

On Charlottesville’s Historic Downtown Mall, The Jefferson Theater occupies a former movie palace that has become a major performing arts venue. Built in 1912, it originally combined vaudeville performances with cinema. Architect C. K. Howell designed the building; he also designed the November Theatre in nearby Richmond.

The venue was most recently operated as a dollar theater before restoration began in spring 2006. It reopened in November 2009 with space for 750 seats.

Ting Pavilion

Ting Pavilion is a Charlottesville music venue where live performances take center stage. It adds a contemporary layer to the city’s downtown cultural landscape and is a lively place to notice while exploring the area.

The Unite the Right rally

Charlottesville’s recent history also includes the Unite the Right rally, a white supremacist gathering held on August 11 and 12, 2017. The event attracted national and international attention because of the violence that followed.

The rally took place during a wider controversy over local governments’ removal of Confederate monuments after the 2015 Charleston church shooting, in which a white supremacist killed nine people at a Black church. In Charlottesville, clashes between rally participants and counter-protesters left more than 30 people injured and intensified national debates about Confederate iconography, racial violence, and white supremacy.

The deadliest violence occurred on August 12, when James Alex Fields Jr., who identified himself as a white supremacist, deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters about 800 meters from the rally site. He killed Heather Heyer and injured 35 people. Fields was arrested soon afterward, convicted in Virginia state court in 2018, and pleaded guilty the following year to 29 federal hate crimes.

This is a difficult part of Charlottesville’s story, but understanding it is important when visiting the places connected to the city’s recent history.

Explore Charlottesville with a Self-Guided Audio Tour

A Charlottesville self-guided walking tour lets you explore these places independently, without having to follow a group. Neywo offers one walk, “Downtown Charlottesville: Stages, Synagogue and Hard Memories,” covering 2.05 km in 59 minutes with 6 narrated stops: Delevan Baptist Church, The Jefferson Theater, Paramount Theater, the Unite the Right rally site, Congregation Beth Israel, and Ting Pavilion.

There is also one bus route, “CAT Route 4 Through Downtown Charlottesville,” covering 12.4 km in 53 minutes with 4 narrated stops: Delevan Baptist Church, The Jefferson Theater, the Unite the Right rally site, and Ting Pavilion.

Download Neywo to explore Charlottesville with its free audio guide. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Charlottesville is part of Virginia, in the United States. To continue exploring the state, you can also discover Richmond, Staunton, or Virginia Beach.