Last month I had a quick 3 days in Washington DC. (Often just known as ‘DC) First of all, in my ignorance I didn’t realise that the DC stands for District of Columbia, which is nowhere near the state of Washington. I also didn’t know what to expect and only explored the central part of it, but really liked it. We stayed in an AirBnb within walking distance of the main sights, and it was located in a beautiful leafy street with individual characterful houses. The house itself was old and divided into flats (apartments) and was small but perfectly adequate.
One of the first places to visit was a train station as I’d seen photos of the entrance to the building. The Union Station is certainly impressive.
It was a sunny day and as we left the building I noticed the sun streaming through the pillars outside, casting great shadows on the ground.
We then carried on walking to Capitol hill, and the Capitol building. I’d never really taken much notice of the building before watching it on the news being stormed by rioters supporting Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. It’s a very impressive building, and as somebody who likes the use of language, I needed to know why the area and building is spelled this way, instead of the usual ‘capital’. After all Washington DC is the capital of the United States. The answer is that the word “Capitol” always refers to a type of building that houses the legislative branch of government, or the area surrounding it. So now you know too!
Below is a selection of some of the random photos I took whilst walking around. The edge of the building below is a great piece of architecture and comes to a sharp point.
There are 17 Smithsonian museums located in DC and all are free to enter. As somebody who has an affinity for Africa, I was interested to go into The Museum Of African Art. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African art and it has a great staircase almost as soon as you enter. I particularly liked the dresses below, one of which is made of bank notes, a sash, and a couple of bamboo fans!
The following day we were up bright and early to queue up to get tickets to go up the Washington Monument. Tickets are free and released 30 days in advance, but demand always exceeds availability. However, they also hold some back for release on the day, and we were able to get tickets for the first slot at 9.30.
The windows right at the top are tiny, but with great views and we couldn’t have picked a better day, as the sky was cloudless. I was pleased that there is a lift inside, and the ascent to the top floor 500 feet above takes approximately 70 seconds.
After visiting the monument we walked through a park towards the statue of Abraham Lincoln. November was a beautiful time to visit the capital city as there are so many trees which were changing colour. We were lucky enough to have blue skies each day even though it was on the chilly side early in the morning and at night. I’d rather have that any day over relentless grey and rain though!
Below – Looking back at the monument.
The famous statue is as impressive as I thought it would be.
There are many war memorials in DC but this Korean war veterans memorial in particular was very sobering. Each soldier is different, but what really brought home just how many lives were lost was the amount of names in the plaques. Literally hundreds and hundreds, and that of course doesn’t include the sheer volume of civilians killed.
Another stark reminder is Arlington Cemetery. It’s America’s largest military cemetery, covers 639 acres, and serves as the final resting place for more than 400,000 veterans and their immediate family from the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, World Wars I and II, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, the Cold War and America’s Civil War. The cemetery still conducts between 27 and 30 funerals every weekday which I find astounding and very sad, and whilst there we saw one taking place and heard the gun salute.
Not far from the Washington Monument is a memorial to Martin Luther King.
These beautiful columns are in front of the U.S. Department of Justice Building.
Finally we spent a couple of hours in the The Library of Congress which is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its collections contain approximately 173 million items!
As we left to go back to the airport it started raining. The perfect time to leave after a great little break.
