2026114 Gardens of the DuPont Family with Lunch

06/10/2026 Tuesday Trip# 2026114

Gardens of the DuPont Family with Lunch at the Historic Columbus Inn Featuring Nemours Estate & Hagley Museum

Today we travel down to the Brandywine Valley in Delaware to Nemours Estate for a self-guided tour to explore the elegance of a 77-room Mansion, a Chauffeur's Garage with vintage automobiles, and 200 acres of French-inspired formal gardens, grounds and woodlands. After our visit to the beautiful Nemours Estate we will travel over to the historic Columbus Inn for lunch, The Columbus Inn dates back to the years just after America’s Revolutionary War, opening in 1798 as Schamiz’s Bakery before becoming a tavern in 1812 and as early as 1849, the city of Wilmington has the name of “Columbus Inn” on record, operating as a tollgate stop on the main stagecoach route on Kennett Pike from Lancaster, PA to Wilmington’s Riverfront. After our lunch we will travel over to Hagley Museum  for a guided tour and what you discover here will put your entire trip into context. It is here that the du Pont family first settled in America, built their first home, and began the black powder manufacturing business that became the foundation for all the other du Pont enterprises in the world. The legacy of Hagley and the early family can then be seen here. Today, Hagley is 235 picturesque acres of wooded rolling hills along the rushing Brandywine River dotted with stone ruins of the black powder industry, restored buildings associated with the business, and the original ancestral home and gardens of the du Pont family in America.

There is a lot of walking on this tour.