Norfolk travel guide

Top 10 sights in Norfolk

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1

   Fort Monroe

   A moated stone fort at Old Point Comfort completed in 1834, the largest in the United States, which stayed in Union hands throughout the Civil War so that escaping slaves who reached it were kept as contraband rather than returned. Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in it; it became a national monument in 2011.

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2. 

   2

   Chrysler Museum of Art

   An art museum founded in 1933 on the edge of the Ghent district, holding one of the finest glass collections in the world — about ten thousand pieces including major Tiffany holdings. Admission is free and a working glass studio operates beside it.

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3. 

   3© Lyricmac · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Basilica of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Norfolk

   A basilica of 1858 in downtown Norfolk, the city's first Catholic church, which survived the Civil War and became the centre of Black Catholic worship in Virginia. It was raised to minor basilica in 1991 and is known as the Black Basilica.

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4. 

   4© Jmarian7 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Berkley

   A quarter across the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River from downtown Norfolk, chartered as a town of its own in 1890 and annexed by the city in 1906. Shipyards and lumber mills built it, and rows of Victorian houses still line its streets.

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5. 

   5© Mytwocents at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Virginia Zoological Park

   A 21-hectare zoo beside Lafayette Park, founded in 1900 and the largest in Virginia, with an African okavango section and a two-hectare Asia trail. A train circles the grounds.

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6. 

   6© MamaGeek at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Norfolk Botanical Garden

   A botanical garden begun in 1938 as a Works Progress Administration project, cleared and planted largely by two hundred African American labourers, mostly women, for twenty-five cents an hour. Its azalea collection is the legacy of that work and a memorial now records it.

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7. 

   7© LittleT889 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Hampton Roads Naval Museum

   A naval museum on the Norfolk waterfront run by the Navy itself, one of ten in its system, covering the Chesapeake campaigns, the Monitor and Merrimack fight of 1862 and the Atlantic Fleet. It shares a building with Nauticus.

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8. 

   8

   Hampton National Cemetery

   A national cemetery at Hampton established in 1862, in two separate sections, holding Union and Confederate dead together — unusual for a national cemetery of that date. About twenty-two thousand are buried in it.

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9. 

   9© Puddin Tain · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Chesapeake Arboretum

   An arboretum at 624 Oak Grove Road in Chesapeake, on a former farm, with several loop trails through native woodland. It is run by volunteers and free every day.

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10. 

    10© Kubigula (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Mount Trashmore Park

    A park in Virginia Beach opened in 1974, built by capping a landfill with soil to make a 20-metre hill — the first such conversion in the United States and the model for many since. The name is the city's own joke about it.

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Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

1. 

   1

   MacArthur Memorial

   A memorial and museum to Douglas MacArthur in three buildings on MacArthur Square, centred on the 1850 Norfolk city hall where he and his wife are entombed. His corncob pipes, the surrender documents and his 1951 farewell address are held here.

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2. 

   2© Ewelch1 · CC BY 3.0

   Nauticus

   A maritime science centre on the downtown waterfront opened in 1994, with the battleship USS Wisconsin moored alongside and open to walk. It combines a science museum with the naval museum and the ship in one visit.

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3. 

   3

   Newport News Victory Arch

   A concrete arch at Newport News, first put up in wood in 1919 to welcome troops home from France through this port and rebuilt in permanent form in 1962. An eternal flame burns beneath it.

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4. 

   4

   Saint Paul's Episcopal Church

   An Anglican church of 1739, and the only building in Norfolk to survive the British bombardment of 1 January 1776 — a cannonball is still lodged in its southeastern wall. Its churchyard holds graves from the 1680s.

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5. 

   5© Rlevse · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Old Donation Episcopal Church

   The third Lynnhaven Parish church, built in 1736 and the oldest church in Virginia Beach. Grace Sherwood, the only woman convicted of witchcraft in Virginia by a ducking trial in 1706, worshipped in the parish; she was pardoned in 2006.

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6. 

   6

   Fort Norfolk

   The last survivor of the harbour defences ordered by George Washington, built between 1795 and 1809 and enclosing eleven buildings — guardhouse, officers' quarters, powder magazine and carpenter's shop among them. The Army Corps of Engineers has kept its district office here since 1923.

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7. 

   7© Capt1922 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St. Paul's Catholic Church

   A Catholic church at Portsmouth founded in 1810, and one of the oldest Catholic parishes in Virginia, in a building of the 1840s. Its congregation began among French and Irish shipyard workers.

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