I have been fortunate enough to visit many capital cities during my travels from London in the UK, to Rome in Italy, San Jose in Costa Rica, Georgetown in Grand Cayman and the list goes on but our visit to Washington stands out as being up there in my Top Three. Why I hear you ask?
A Walking City – I do like a walking city
Every capital city I’ve ever visited falls into one of two categories:- walkable or not walkable. I don’t mind travelling in and out on a bus, train or tram but once in the centre of things I like to be able to walk and not rely upon public transport. On our first day in Washington the bus from our Air BnB dropped us off along Independence Avenue and from here we walked to the Lincoln Memorial to begin our explorations. In total we walked seven miles but, in awe of all the magnificent sites, we never even realised!
Public Transport:
We liked the public transport in Washington. Armed with Citymapper and/or Google Maps we were easily able to navigate our way into the centre or out to Arlingham Cemetery for example.
Both the buses and the metro were safe, clean, reliable and staff were friendly and helpful when we needed them.
As a visitor I always feel this is a good measurement of a city. No one wants to sit on a bus or metro with dirty seats. Sorry London you definitely fall into this category!
Additionally unfriendly staff and/or lack of information as to where we are going just makes life hard -Fort Lauderdale was like this. The bus drivers grunted and the electronic overhead stop indicators were often switched off. Without a battery pack on board, my mobile would have been drained before we even reached our destination
Finally safety is a big plus or minus. We rode one metro in Philadelphia and believe me one was enough. My husband is 6 ft 3 but even he felt unsafe. Thank goodness we were only riding a couple of stops.
Free Entry:
This was an amazing plus point for a capital city.
We honestly couldn’t believe that nearly everything is free to get into. You often have to book a date and time, in order for them to manage numbers, but hey who cares when you don’t have to pay.
Entry fees account for a large proportion of our expenditure when we are travelling so to save on this was a real bonus.
In comparison for two of us in Paris we spent £48 to gain entry into The Palace of Versailles, £51 for an off peak ticket onto The London Eye and an astronomical £125 for The Empire State Building!!! (All costs in pound sterling at today”s exchange rates) .
Green Spaces:
With so many cities overcrowded with tourists and cars it was a pleasant surprise to find that Washington isn’t like that. There are many parks, gardens and squares throughout Washington, in fact 24% of the city’s area is park space and 99% of Washington’s residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. Overall, the city has 683 parks and greenspaces.
You could actually feel it wherever you went, just the sheer openness of the city.
On our first day we walked from The Lincoln Memorial alongside the Reflecting Pool to the World War II Memorial, then through Ash Woods to the Martin Luther King Memorial.
From here we headed around the Tidal Basin, visiting the other memorials until we reached the National Museum of African American History and Culture, it was lovely to experience nature alongside what is essentially the centre of a capital city.
Nature abounds in other capital cities don’t get me wrong, for example Hyde Park or Regents Park in London, El Retiro in Madrid and Prince’s Street Gardens in Edinburgh but can be lacking in others. You can walk around and just feel closed in by the buildings, the people and the traffic.
Architecture:
The variety of architecture also hits you in Washington.
Maybe because this capital city is only just over 200 years old it exudes variety.
Many of the government buildings, monuments, and museums along the National Mall and surrounding areas are heavily inspired by classical Roman and Greek architecture.
The White House, the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court Building, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial are all heavily drawn from these classical architectural movements featuring domes, columns in classical order, large pediments, and heavy stone walls.
The main Library of Congress, however, was built in Beaux-Arts style, popular throughout the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In contrast The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a stone based Neo classical building influenced by African Art, the inside of the metro stations evoke the 20th century Brutalism movement and the list goes on!
My mobile camera was in overdrive throughout a lot of our wanderings around the city.
What was also surprising was the lack of skyscrapers. Such a rarity in any city in the world today but another real positive architecture wise. It gave a feeling of space, of n to being closed in.
And finally…………
The sheer volume of places to visit matches if not exceeds other capital cities but for us it wasn’t the amount of monuments but the sheer size, artistry, imagination and thought behind them.
Seriously if you visit Washington do not miss the Memorials dedicated to Lincoln, The Vietnam War Veterans, World War II, Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson etc but for us above all else stood the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.
At first I was totally underwhelmed thinking that the first section I saw was it!
Then I realised that the memorial actually consists of five outdoor rooms- one is a prologue and the other four represent each term of his office.In total it covers 7.5 acres!
It is so different to any of the others using not just stone but landscaping and water features to tell his story of being President.
This man is not part of my history, being from the UK, but I left feeling he was more in touch with the people of his country than anyone else since in either of our countries. Twenty two quotations from Roosevelt’s presidency are engraved in the red South Dakota granite walls of the memorial.
My favourites that are as equally relevant today, given the broken political situation both of our countries find ourselves in are:
“We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”
January 9, 1940
“Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.”
January 24, 1935
“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
January 20, 1937
If any country in the world wants to build a monument to commemorate an episode in history or an important person they should come here first and see how it is really done!
If you ever get a chance to go to Washington please go, you won’t regret it!
To all those we met on our travels in America and to those we didn’t who follow my Instagram or blog, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
A Midlife Adventure 