We arrived in DC on a Saturday evening after a long Southwest Airlines flight from Ontario, California. My parents had arrived from India a couple of hours earlier. Since we were all pretty tired by now, we headed straight for the hotel. We were staying at the Fairfield Inn & Suites, Dulles Airport.
Day 1:
After getting up early in the morning and having complimentary breakfast at the hotel, me and Karen went to the Dulles Airport to pick up our rental car. This was the only rental booked without points for this trip. We had booked an intermediate car but got the complimentary upgrade to a full size. Sweet !!
After checking out of the hotel, we went straight to the Washington Monument. Although it was a Sunday, we still had trouble finding parking nearby. The Washington Monument has been under construction since 2011 when it was damaged during an earthquake and Hurricane Irene. There is scaffolding all around the monument ruining the view. The work is supposed to be completed in 2014.
Right next to the Washington Monument is the National World War II memorial. It was a very hot day and there is no shade around the monument. However, the walk from this memorial to the Lincoln Memorial by the Reflecting Pool has plenty of shade.
The Lincoln Memorial was swarmed with tourists that day. Up near the statue there was barely any space. This is a wonderful piece of architecture which makes you feel humbled in the presence of this great American president. After taking a few pictures, we walked back on the trail towards the WW II memorial again where another trail branches off towards the Vietnam Veterans memorial.
The architecture of this memorial is very simple yet elegant and profoundly impacts your heart. The sidewalk next to the wall, where more than 50,000 names are inscribed, starts to go down and the wall goes higher as the casualty numbers peak during the war. Seeing this sea of names on the wall would choke up anyone and it really brings home the high cost of war.
After the Vietnam War memorial, we walked towards the White House. It gets real crowded there because of the limited standing area in front of the fence.
By this time we were hungry and so stopped for lunch and then drove to Arlington where we were staying at the Residence Inn Arlington, Pentagon City.
After taking a nap, we drove back to the city to see the Capitol building at night. There was a concert playing nearby so there was lots of security in the area. We were unable to get too close to the building.
Next up was Jefferson Memorial. I had read on Tripadvisor that the Jefferson Memorial is the best lit of all the memorials at night, and it is true. It was a very different experience seeing this memorial at night without the crowds. However, I wished we had enough time to come back and see it during daylight.
We were tired by this time with all the walking earlier in the day and called it a night.
Day 2:
After a wonderful breakfast (more on it in the hotel review), we packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. Our first stop of the day was going to be a Smithsonian Museum. Because it was a holiday, we spent almost half an hour trying to find parking nearby the National Museum of Natural History.
The museum has 2 floors and has a vast collection of artifacts. The highlights of the collection include the Hope Diamond, one of those Easter Island Statues and a Mummy collection. We spent about 3 hours there. The biggest crowd was around the Hope Diamond in the precious stones exhibit area.
Next up on our list was the Holocaust museum. You don’t know true evil until you have been to this museum and see what happened in Europe during this dark chapter of our human history. This museum does an excellent job of detailing the events that slowly led to the rise of the Third Reich and the horrors of the “Final Solution”. When you enter the exhibit area, they give everyone an ID card that details the life of an actual holocaust victim and thus further humanizes the experience. I have heard that there are still some “holocaust deniers” out there and it just blows my mind away by the level of ignorance. Photography is strictly prohibited in the exhibit area so obviously there are no pictures. We did a bit a of a rushed tour of the museum in 3 hours but to see it well, it would take over 5 hours.
Afterwards, we drove back to Dulles Airport where we were staying at the Crown Plaza close to the airport. Keep in mind, on this trip there are about $ 3 worth of tolls each way.
Day 3:
We drove to the Marine Corps War Memorial (also known as the Iwo Jima memorial). The memorial is located next to the Arlington National Cemetery.
The detail work of the statues is amazing. Starting from the shoes to the rifle and the clothes, everything was very realistic. Although I have seen this image many times before, being able to see it in person made me feel very lucky.
Afterwards we drove to National Air & Space Museum. I had heard that this museum was one of the most popular of the Smithsonian museums at the National Mall and we didn’t want to miss it on this trip. If you are an aviation geek like me, you would love spending a whole day at this museum. The highlights of this museum are Command Module of the Apollo 11, the “moon rock” and the Wright Brothers’ gallery.
After spending half a day in the museum, we called it a day and drove back to our Dulles Airport hotel.