Washington, DC
If civic politics is the American religion, then Washington DC is the nation's holy city. White houses, capital and pentagonal buildings, supreme courts - these monumental Lego shrines are rarefied with real power. A patriotic combination of history and histrionics: BYO wiretap.
To some, Washington means white marble, verdant lawns, and the colourful, ritualistic pageantry of American politics: the Capitol dome gleaming against an azure sky; limousine processions on Inauguration Day; the mournful, sombre, stately changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery.
Yet Washington is no mere political ornament. It is also a city, a city where ordinary and extraordinary people live, work and play, a city of vibrant and beautiful neighbourhoods where the federal government and its machinery are merely backdrops to life, not the main-stage drama. After visitors have explored the wonders of the Smithsonian Institution's 14 museums (always free!), strolled through the halls of power, and played spot-the-senator in famous eateries, delightful districts like Dupont Circle, Adams-Morgan and Georgetown offer opportunities to meet ordinary folks, tour lovely historic buildings, and dive into fabulous world cuisine.
Area: 170 sq km
Population: 570,000
Country: USA
Time Zone: GMT/UTC -5 (Eastern Time)
Telephone Area Code: 202
back to top Orientation Washington is plonked down in the District of Columbia, a little enclave chopped from the state of Maryland. It is bounded on one side by the Potomac River (on the other side of the river you'll find Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia) and on the other sides by the state of Maryland. The city covers 170sq km (65sq mi).
Washington is ringed by a freeway bypass called the Beltway, which divides the urban insiders from the suburbanites. The Capitol isn't just the symbolic centre of Washington: from here the city is divided into four compass-point quadrants along axes following N Capitol St, E Capitol St, S Capitol St and the Mall. Identical addresses appear in all four quadrants, so you need to know the directional component of the address you want.
Streets are arranged on a grid of north-south numbered streets and east-west lettered streets. This grid is overlaid by broad diagonal avenues. The geometric pattern is further interrupted by traffic circles that add to the city's appeal but can make DC a challenging place for outsiders to navigate by car.
Most tourist sights are located around the Capitol, along the Mall and in the Northwest quadrant. Downtown includes the monuments dotting the Mall but is otherwise strictly business. Dupont Circle is an upscale business and residential address with a groovy fringe; Adams-Morgan is bohemian, funky and international; Shaw has historically elite residential areas and ghettos, and Georgetown has pristine historic houses, a university and lively bars. With Northwest quadrant real estate spiralling out of control, Brookland and the Northeast quadrant are showing promising development.
back to top When to Go
The most comfortable times to visit Washington are in spring (March to May) and fall (September to November). The official tourist season runs from April through September. It's a good idea to buy advance tickets to popular attractions during this period because the queues can be monstrous.
Summers are hot and humid, especially in July and August. If you can bear the heat, this can be a good time to visit, as business travel to DC slumps and accommodation rates fall accordingly. Snowman aficionados may get a kick out of winter. If you plan on being in town for the city's biggest events - the Cherry Blossom Festival in March, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in June and Independence Day in July - book ahead.
Events Washington is a world stage, with international media poised for an 'event' any time the President dons his jogging shoes. But besides these spontaneous little excitements, Washington also hosts big-scale, half-crazy, half-democratic events that reel in everyone from Texan brigades to teachers' unions, pro-lifers, priests and peaceniks, cult and world leaders. And some of these events have changed the nation's history...
Regular features on the DC calender include the beloved Cherry Blossom Festival in March-April and the Smithsonian's Folklife Festival in June. Independence Day is a grand event, including a troops parade, the reading of the Declaration of Independence, concerts and fireworks over the Potomac. Other highlights include Martin Luther King Jr Day on the third Monday in January, when orators recite King's 'I have a dream' speech at the Lincoln Memorial; the Smithsonian Kite Festival (late March), when kite designers, flyers and competitors gather on the Mall for this rite of spring; April's White House Easter Egg Roll, which the First Lady hosts for children under eight; and the Festival of American Folk Life, hosted by the Smithsonian on the last weekend in June.
In September, Adams-Morgan Day is a raging international block party with global music, food and crafts along and around 18th St NW and Columbia Rd. This is also the month for the National Frisbee Festival (watch your head when wandering the Mall) and the DC Blues Festival (free concerts around town). On the second Thursday in December, the President illuminates the national Christmas tree and lights a menorah on the Ellipse. There's outdoor partying on New Year's Eve at the Old Post Office.
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Public holidays
1 Jan - New Year's Day
Third Monday in January - Martin Luther King Jr Day
20 January, every fourth year - Inauguration Day
Third Monday in February - Presidents' Day
Mar/Apr - Easter
Last Monday in May - Memorial Day
4 Jul - Independence Day
First Monday in September - Labor Day
Second Monday in October - Columbus Day
11 Nov - Veterans' Day
Fourth Thursday in November - Thanksgiving Day
25 Dec - Christmas Day
Attractions
Capitol
Three years after Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton decided that Washington should house the nation's capital in 1790, construction began on the grand Capitol that was to grace the hill east of the Potomac. By the turn of the century, the movers, shakers and lawmakers began to move in. The British nearly burned it to the ground in 1814, which demoralized the Americans almost enough to provoke the abandonment of the whole DC experiment. However, some last-minute resolve saw the Capitol rebuilt from 1817 to 1819. The House and Senate wings were added in 1857, the nine-million-pound iron dome in 1863 and the east face in the 1950s, making the current icon over twice as large as the original building. The Capitol is the epicentre of the city as well as being its most prominent landmark; Washington's major avenues intersect at an imaginary point under the dome. If you want to watch Congress in session, you'll have to get a pass for the visitors' gallery from your Congressional Representative (if you have one) or the Sergeant-at-Arms (if you don't).
The dramatic Capitol Rotunda is decorated with a fresco painted by Italian immigrant Constantino Brumidi. Called The Apotheosis of Washington, it shows George Washington being welcomed into heaven by 13 angels representing the original 13 states (and apparently modelled on 13 local prostitutes). The hallways are decorated with more murals, showing the nation's heroes and their deeds - the most recent is a portrait of the dead Challenger astronauts. Statuary Hall is filled with stone men - theoretically two distinguished citizens from each state, but in principal a few less than that, as the floor wasn't strong enough to bear the weight of so much marble.
back to top Federal Bureau of Investigation
Nobody votes for its agents, but there's no doubt the Federal Bureau of Investigation wields serious power. Officially named the J Edgar Hoover FBI Building (after the notorious director who made the FBI the crime-fighting bureaucracy it is today), the Bureau's headquarters are at 10th and Pennsylvania NW.
back to top Library of Congress
A block east of the Capitol, the Library of Congress has about 100 million items, including 26 million books, 36 million manuscripts and maps, photographs, sheet music and musical instruments. It's the largest library in the world. Books from the library were used to light the 1814 Capitol fire, after which President Jefferson sold his collection to the library to get the numbers back up. The best part of the library is the 1897 Jefferson Building, with its vaulted ceilings and ornate decoration. Two modern annexes are nearby. The library screens free classic films, and occasionally concerts are given using the library's five Stradivarius violins.
Lincoln Memorial
The inspirational Lincoln Memorial embodies the American ideal of freedom, tolerance and charity. It is a powerful symbol and the giant seated Abraham Lincoln statue conveys a strange resonating ambience.
The memorial is much more than a monument to the 16th US president. Completed in 1922, it quickly became a symbol of America's commitment to civil rights. From its steps in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr preached, 'I have a dream...' Designed to resemble a Greek temple, the monument's 36 columns represent the 36 states in Lincoln's union. The hands of the 19ft (5.7m) statue read A and L in American Sign Language to honor Lincoln's support for the Gallaudet College for the Deaf.
The Memorial closes the west end of the picture-postcard view down the Mall from the US Capitol and the Washington Monument. It is a temple to the man who saved the nation that he called 'the last best hope on Earth'. This is best expressed through his elegant words that run along the north and south wall of the chamber, including his masterpiece, the famous Gettysburg Address.
back to top Smithsonian Institution
Huge and often overwhelming, The Smithsonian encompasses 14 museums and galleries in DC alone. The two big drawcards are the Museum of Natural History and the Air & Space Museum, but leave time to explore the Asian art of the Freer Gallery and marvel at the earnest patriotism of the Museum of American History.
The National Air & Space Museum is packed with full-size air and spacecraft, including the Wright brothers' plane and the Apollo IX command module. You can touch a moon rock, watch a stomach-churning IMAX film or visit the planetarium. The National Museum of Natural History holds many awesome highlights, including the Hope Diamond, a model of the biggest blue whale ever seen and a giant elephant. It's got all the favorites: dinosaur bones, insects and a newly renovated hall of gems and minerals. The National Museum of American History is full of cultural touchstones - they've got the original American flag and, more importantly, the original Kermit the Frog, as well as Fonzie's leather jacket, Dorothy's ruby slippers and a whole bunch of sensible historical stuff.
The White House
Every president since 1800 has snuggled down in the White House, ensuring that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is the most famous address in the nation.
The White House, a cozier-than-it-looks neoclassical manor, has survived a torching by the British in 1814, a Jacqueline Kennedy redecoration campaign in the 1960s and Ronald Reagan doing broomstick reruns of the Kentucky Derby through the 1980s.
Presidents have customized the property over time: Jefferson added toilets, FDR put in a pool, Truman installed a second-story porch, Bush added a horseshoe-throwing lane and Clinton put in a jogging track and a seven-seat hot tub. Some residents never leave: it's said that Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman both sighted the ghost of Abe Lincoln in Lincoln's old study. In the interests of security, tours now need to be organised through your congress-person six months in advance.
back to top Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The most visited memorial in DC is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a stark, powerful structure designed by Maya Ying Lin, whose design was selected from a national competition when she was a 21-year-old architecture student at Yale University. Two walls of polished black marble that come together in a V shape are inscribed with the names of 58,202 veterans killed or missing as a result of the Vietnam War. Names are inscribed chronologically from date of death; alphabetical rosters are available nearby. On request, volunteers will help you get rubbings of names from 'The Wall'. The most moving remembrances are the notes, medals and mementos left by survivors, family and friends since the memorial was completed in 1982. Opponents to the design insisted that a more traditional sculpture be added; a memorial to the women who served in the war was another later addition.
Washington Monument
For a top-notch view of the Potomac Basin, make your way up the 555ft (166m) Washington Monument. This white obelisk rising from the centre of the Mall was begun in 1848, but not completed for 37 years. The project was derailed by antipapists who opposed Pope Pius IX's contributions, then the Civil War interrupted. There's an elevator ride to the top, and you can walk back down a staircase lined with plaques from all the states, plus one from the Cherokee Nation. While the monument itself is accessible, the grounds are currently closed for security enhancements.
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