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Old 2 Nov 19, 07:22 PM  
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Goldia
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Washington DC - Memorials, museums and more Day 4 26/10/19

Day 4 – Saturday 26th October 2019

Today we had an early start as we had a tour of the Capitol Building, we also wanted to look around the Library of Congress and the Botanic Garden. The plan was to see the memorials in the dark with all the lights on as they are supposed to be stunning all lit up.

The alarm was set for 6am as the tour for the Capitol was at 9.20am. We made it down to breakfast just after 7am. This was again very tasty with pancakes and sausage and set us up for the day.







We left the hotel by 8.30am and walked straight to the Capitol.









The tour is free, but you have to book up in advance as there are only a few slots.



There was a long queue outside and we joined the end of it.



This did move quite quickly. They were letting in about 20 people at a time for the airport style security. This is one place that was very strict on what you can take in. Back packs are allowed, but only small ones, no large bags but the email reservation gave all the information about what was permitted and what was not.

There is no food or drink of any kind allowed. It is quite clear on the booking confirmation we received and so we knew this would not be a day when we had to carry around a heavy bag. I didn’t mind this as we’d already decided to head back to the hotel around midday for a break so it didn’t bother me that we wouldn’t have lots of water and snacks.

It seems not everyone in the line had bothered reading this email as they were surprised they had to empty their bottles (you could take an empty bottle and refill inside) and the group behind us said “what we even have to eat our granola bars?” they seemed surprised that this counted as food! NO! No food allowed!

We went through security and checked in for our tour.



We had a look around the statues in the entrance room.













Waiting patiently four our tour to start.



There is a commemorative stone to remember that the building was largely built using slave labour.





First on the tour you watch an orientation movie which is about 15 minutes long. This is interesting and talks a little about the history of the building and about the structure of the Government explaining the difference between Senate and Congress. I found this fascinating as I didn’t understand much of this prior to the movie.

Then you are assigned to a tour group with a guide and are given a headset so that you can hear your guide properly.



Our guide was fantastic, extremely knowledgeable and clearly very proud to be doing her job. You visit 3 rooms and the tour itself takes about 45 minutes.

First we went into the crypt.





There is a replica of the Magna Carta in this room which was given as a gift by the UK.





Secondly, we went into the rotunda, which is directly above the crypt.





This was an impressive room.



It has connecting corridors to the Senate and the House of Representatives. It is used for ceremonial events and is where Presidents lie in state.

The Frieze of American History is painted to appear as if it is carved, it depicts scenes such as the landing of Columbus, Captain Smith and Pocahontas and the Landing of the Pilgrims.





It was incredible.

There are also statues and paintings of famous Presidents around the room.







Finally we went into the statue room. Each state is allowed to display two statues, they must be in either marble or bronze.

In addition there is a statue of Rosa Parks.



As I said our guide was fantastic and we were thoroughly impressed with this tour, I’m really glad we did it. I had tried to book a tour of the White House, but we weren’t able to get one. I looked at the Pentagon tour, but this is longer and I wasn’t sure if it would hold the attention of the kids. Actually they did really well in here as clearly you can’t just wander off and have to stay with your group, but our guide was so passionate about the building that we couldn’t fail to find it interesting.

We took the tunnel to the Library of Congress.









We looked around the map room, which had lots of maps of America.







The suffrage room was interesting. Dave and Kate watched a short movie in here explaining the suffrage movement in America.

We also saw the Thomas Jefferson library.





We queued to see the Reading room, the queue wasn't too long though only a couple of minutes. You see the room from up high and look down into it. It’s a shame you can’t walk around inside.







As we came out there was a little bit of rain, but not enough to stop us.



I took a final photo for goodevans this time of the Capitol Building.



We walked around to the Botanic Gardens. These are also free to enter.







There are indoor greenhouse sections as well as outdoor gardens.









The kids enjoyed exploring in here.



Max bumped his head, he’s a bit too tall for this now.







There was a living sculpture maze outside, which was a bit smelly, but the kids liked looking around inside it.



We enjoyed the gardens.



It was pretty quiet and we sat on a bench and had a nice rest.













We had decided to head back to the hotel for a midday break as I was keen to see the memorials at night and knew we would need a rest.

But first we headed to Walmart for some provisions.



On the way back to the hotel we some kids playing Saturday morning football.



Our rather large Walmart haul.



Believe it or not the vast majority of this was eaten this afternoon, we just saved 4 sugar cookies for the following day!

Dave had a snooze.



The kids messed around on you tube and watched a bit of TV.





Then did some spying of the people in the apartments over the road.



We got ourselves ready to go out around 5.30pm. We used the metro to take us into a stop near the White House.









There were different coloured lights lighting it up.





The Monument, it won’t be the last photo either!



We made our way towards the Vietnam Memorial.





Another look at the Monument.



Onwards to the Lincoln Memorial.



Max managed to get a selfie of us all just as an aeroplane was going over, these were actually quite loud and very frequent.







Another photo of the Monument.



And of Lincoln himself.



We then walked onwards to the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial.





We hadn’t seen this yet and it was on my list as one we really should see. I’m glad we went over there as this was another very impressive memorial with lots of quotes from him and it was very moving.









We walked back across to the World War 2 memorial.



The fountains were beautiful all lit up.







By now though we were all starving as it was coming up for 8pm.
We stopped a Pizzeria on the way back to the hotel. This was a brilliant find.



The kids both had cokes. I had a gin and tonic and Dave had a beer.



We ordered 2 large pizzas, with two toppings on each. This meant that we each got to pick a topping.

One which was a deep pie pizza, Max’s choice of meatballs was the tastiest. We managed to eat all of this pizza.



The second was a thin crust and equally as yummy.



But we couldn’t finish it all and had to get a box for the leftovers, but these made a very tasty snack the next day.



The pizzas were fab and it was a very reasonable price at around $80.

We slowly walked back to the hotel. We did our online check in for the return flight at the hotel. We picked out seats B and C in row 29 and then B and C in row 30. It looked like it might be a quiet flight and I was hopeful no one would pick seat A (the window seat) and we would be able to spread out on the flight home.

As soon as we had done that we went straight to bed.

Another great day with the fascinating tour at the Capitol and then the beautiful gardens. The memorials at night were worth the effort and were stunning all lit up. The Martin Luther King Jr one was particularly inspirational.

Steps 29,200 I was half tempted to walk around the block to get the steps over the 30,000 mark but in the end I was too tired.

Coming soon
Next up, our last day in DC and as we have a late flight at 9.45pm we made the most of our last day. First up we watched some of the Marine Corps marathon, we hadn’t known this was happening and just stumbled upon it. We had a couple of museums that we wanted to get to The Air and Space Museum and The Museum for Native Indians, before a final dinner and heading home.
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Old 2 Nov 19, 08:06 PM  
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smithlane
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An amazing day!
The Capitol Building Tour looks really interesting, we'll definitely try to book on that one.
I still don't know the difference between the Senate and Congress either even after reading up on it before so would be good to hear all about them.
The gardens look beautiful, glad you had good weather to have a wander.
I can't believe that's all you bought from Walmart . I can't go in that shop and not spend less than $80!
All the Memorials look stunning lit up. I don't think you can have too many photos of the Monument, it's my favourite one!
Great dinner too, that pizza pie looks fab
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Old 2 Nov 19, 08:48 PM  
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A really great report that has sold me on a tour of the Capitol next time we visit. (We have done the Westminster one and thus would like to compare).

Thankyou for this.
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Old 3 Nov 19, 09:28 AM  
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Originally Posted by smithlane View Post
An amazing day!
The Capitol Building Tour looks really interesting, we'll definitely try to book on that one.
I still don't know the difference between the Senate and Congress either even after reading up on it before so would be good to hear all about them.
The gardens look beautiful, glad you had good weather to have a wander.
I can't believe that's all you bought from Walmart . I can't go in that shop and not spend less than $80!
All the Memorials look stunning lit up. I don't think you can have too many photos of the Monument, it's my favourite one!
Great dinner too, that pizza pie looks fab
I hope you do get to do the Capitol tour, it was great. You can't pick a time but you do get to say which day you'd prefer.

The gardens were beautiful and a bit less crowded than the library. So it was nice to wander in relative peace and quiet without lots of people around.

I reckon if we'd gone to Walmart earlier in the trip we'd have bought more. But we had only brought hand luggage so everything had to be eaten on the day.

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy View Post
A really great report that has sold me on a tour of the Capitol next time we visit. (We have done the Westminster one and thus would like to compare).

Thankyou for this.
We should really take the kids to London to do that tour. They've been in the Reichstag in Berlin and the Capitol in DC, but not Westminster one day we will have to just do a stay-at-home holiday.
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Old 3 Nov 19, 09:47 AM  
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This is my favourite day yet, the Capital Building looks incredible. I love the statues and architecture. Then the gardens look so pretty.

Your evening photos of the White House, fountains and the monument are beautiful and then reading the quotes on the Martin Luther King Jr memorial are very moving.

All finished off with delicious looking pizzas 😀 That's my type of day 😂
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Old 3 Nov 19, 01:11 PM  
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Goldia
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Originally Posted by DisneyDaffodil View Post
This is my favourite day yet, the Capital Building looks incredible. I love the statues and architecture. Then the gardens look so pretty.

Your evening photos of the White House, fountains and the monument are beautiful and then reading the quotes on the Martin Luther King Jr memorial are very moving.

All finished off with delicious looking pizzas 😀 That's my type of day 😂
Yes it was a good day wasn't it? The tour was fascinating and the gardens so pretty.

The Martin Luther King Jr memorial was my favourite, it wasn't too busy there either and we could read the quotes at our own pace and really take it all in. Having the fab pizza at the end was very satisfying!
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Old 3 Nov 19, 01:34 PM  
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What a fabulous day! The tour looked amazing. It was interesting to hear that there was a statue of Rosa Parks there. My DD did her oral exam on her for her brevet (French gcses). It is good to know that that period of US history is recognized.

The evening photos are lovely. The quotes would have interested me too.

The pizzas look delicious! Must make a Chicago pizza pie sometime soon
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Old 3 Nov 19, 08:15 PM  
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Originally Posted by Melbatb View Post
What a fabulous day! The tour looked amazing. It was interesting to hear that there was a statue of Rosa Parks there. My DD did her oral exam on her for her brevet (French gcses). It is good to know that that period of US history is recognized.

The evening photos are lovely. The quotes would have interested me too.

The pizzas look delicious! Must make a Chicago pizza pie sometime soon
I liked the Rosa Parks statue, interesting to hear she's included in French exams.

I would think you've had enough pizza over the last couple of weeks to keep you going for a while!
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New pre trip report - Summer 2024

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2017: NYC and Orlando. Salzburg. Boston.
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2019: DLP. Orlando. Washington DC.
2020: DLP.
2021: Jamaica. Rome.
2022: Orlando.
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Old 5 Nov 19, 09:27 PM  
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A fabulous day. The Capitol Tour was great wasn’t it. I had no idea about the Botanic Garden, so feel we really missed out there.

I’m also gutted that we missed the memorials lit up at night. They look absolutely stunning. We just hadn’t got the energy to go back out.
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Old 5 Nov 19, 10:08 PM  
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The inside of the Capitol Building is beautiful, every room just had so much detail and it's even more amazing that it was free.

Having someone who is passionate about what they do does make it much more enjoyable.

In fact it seems like there's quite a lot to do that's free which is really good.

Chris would love Botanic Gardens, I'm sure he could have spent an age there taking photos

Oh wow, Monument lit up is just beautiful, what a lovely photo.

The pizzas look so nice and definitely well deserved xx
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