Washington DC: Day 10

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US Capitol & Smithsonian Air, Sea & Space Museum

A fabulous first day in Washington!

We had tickets booked for a tour (free!) of the Capitol this morning at 9.30am so had to hot-foot it over to the Visitor Centre for 9am. Breakfast would have to wait until after the tour. Washington is a much more compact city than New York so we were saving the metro for when we head to the zoo.

8.15am in the morning and where was everyone? The streets were deserted – such a contrast to the craziness of NY at any time of day. We arrived at the Visitor Centre and breezed through security – again – no-one was about! We had 30 mins before our tour started so had a wander around the Capitol Museum. There are lots of statues dotted around the main foyer. As we later learned, each State can supply two statues on display of people from their state of significance. Some were very well known – Rosa Parks, Ronald Reagan, Dwight D Eisenhower, Martin Luther King, Andrew Jackson but most were only significant and known if you were from that state.

At 9.30 we made our way to the South Theatre for the tour to begin with a 15min film on the history of the Capitol. As the British burned down the Capitol and the White House in 1812, we weren’t too sure how the tour guide would react to having us on the tour!

After the film we were split into smaller groups and we had to choose our tour guide as we were first out of the theatre. We headed to our guide – Lauren – and she was brilliant and spoke very knowledgeably about the Building, the history and the statues. She found out where everyone was from – 2 families from California, 1 from Michigan and us from England. This was so she could point out the statues and information pertinent from these places.

First stop was the crypt and we are able to stand at the heart of DC – the start where all the districts radiate out from. You can be in NW, NE, SW, SE DC at the same time! The star was very dipped after so many people had stood there over the years. From the crypt, we headed to the old Supreme Court Room / Court Room and then headed up to the Rotunda Foyer. Unfortunately, there was a cloth “donut” attached inside the rotunda as there’s repair work going on, but the very top of the mural was still visible and Lauren pointed out the key figures. There’s a very impressive frieze inside the rotunda too, depicting the history of the US – it took 75 years to complete!

We also headed into the old senate room and saw where Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams would have sat. The design of the room had one flaw though. Our tour guide walked across to the opposite side of the room and whispered. We could hear her really loudly. She then started walking across the room and she fell silent until she was back with us and was whispering. Bet that played havoc with the Democrats and Republicans and the noise resulting would have been deafening.

Whilst wandering around, Lauren pointed out the 2 statues from California and the one from Michigan.

For us the real treat was the gift from Queen Elizabeth II to the US of a copy of the Magna Carta along with two solid gold medallions. The reverse of the case (and you really had to get down low to see them!) was embedded with 50 diamonds – one for each of the States.

Lauren didn’t rush us around and spent time answering all the questions – including bearing with Callum when he got a little confused and though Neil Armstrong had lost an arm in battle and had died – when he meant Admiral Nelson (he did get the bit about fighting the Spanish and French correct though!).

The tour was eventually over and Lauren was good enough to tell us all that the Senate Rooms and the House of Representatives were not in session today and open to visitors. She also mentioned about the tunnel directly linking the Capitol to the Library of Congress and if you used it, yo would not need to go through security again. As foreign visitors we just needed to pop over to the relevant desks to collect tickets. We are able to get the green and orange tickets to both rooms before grabbing some breakfast from the Restaurant on site.

We then went along to see both Houses – Senate with 100 desks and the House with 457? chairs.

After this we walked the tunnel to see the Library of Congress. A truly impressive and elaborately decorated building. The Thomas Jefferson Library was amazing – each book catalogued with a ribbon saying whether it was the original book, a book the collection had replaced after the original lost in the fire or by a book jacket inferring that the book was burnt and they haven’t yet found a replacement. There were also exhibitions on Persian Books and Maps that catalogued the birth of the US.

From the Library, we walked back across and walked around the outside of the Capitol. The skies were blue so the dome looked awesome stood out against the sky.

We walked down the Mall towards the Washington Monument and headed for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum – free to enter – and first stop was lunch. The only option there was McDonalds, so Callum at least was happy!

After lunch we watched an IMAX 3D film on D-Day which was really well done, especially for the younger members in the audience and then we spent the rest of the day wandering around the huge exhibition. There were several rooms allocated to the Apollo missions and the space race, two about the planes in WW1 & 2 – impressive collection of planes from WW2 – a Spitfire, Messerschmitt and Zero plus various US planes. They also had the planes the Wright Brothers and Amelia Earhart flew in. An impressive collection of rockets and rocket powered missiles such as the V2 and Tomahawk too.

We eventually emerged from the Museum – a definite highlight of the holiday. We wandered back to the hotel via 7th Street to check out Legal Sea Food and booked a table for Saturday evening. We eventually got back to the hotel at 6.30pm – we’d been stomping around Washington for over 10 hours and our feet were hurting (although you’d never guess from the way Callum was still bounding around!).

A beer (PBR) at the bar (lemon water and cookie for Callum!) and a quick stop back at the hotel room to don comfy flip flops and we headed out to the Old Ebbitt Grill – right by the White House.

A little wait in the bar area before we got a table. Callum choose the ribs off the starters menu for his main meal, I went for Swordfish and Jon the Crab Cakes. Ours was served on a bed of vegetables (carrots, onions, sweetcorn, green beans) in a sauce that was really nice – even Jon enjoyed it!. Jon also chose a really nice bottle of Sonomo Chardonnay to complement the food.