Washington Travel
National Museum of American History
North side of the Mall, 14th St NW and Constitution Ave; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. americanhistory.si.edu
If you like kitsch, you won't want to miss the bizarre melange of cultural artifacts at the National Museum of American History . George Washington's wooden teeth, Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves, and the ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz are set among didactic displays tracing the country's development. It's not so much a center for scholarly study as a sanctuary for vanishing Americana, incorporating Model T Fords, old post offices and even a restored, c.1900 ice-cream parlor, which still serves up banana splits.
As you enter from the Mall, directly onto the second floor, a display showcases the battered red, white and blue flag that inspired the US national anthem the Star-Spangled Banner itself, which survived the British bombing of Baltimore harbor during the War of 1812. It's been under restoration for six years, a project slated for completion in 2002. Once restored, the relic will form the focus of a new display titled "For Which It Stands" and will presumably be shown in a manner conducive to its long-term preservation. The worthier exhibits are also on this floor: an account of the rural farm-based society of the early US stands across from an examination of the mass movement of African-Americans from Southern farms to the wartime industries of northern cities. A Woolworth lunch counter from Greensboro, North Carolina, evokes the sit-in of 1960. "American Encounters" focuses on New Mexico, looking at how tourism has affected communities such as the pueblo of Santa Clara and Hispanic Chimayo. On the first floor, the " Information Age " gallery traces communications from Morse's first telegraph to virtual reality tours of the Smithsonian. Separate galleries display in glorious profusion the artifacts and machines that have shaped modern America from light bulbs and motorbikes to trains and atomic clocks. The top floor holds political memorabilia (much of it more than a century old), stamp and coin collections and old TV sets and typewriters. Two final outstanding exhibits inject a serious tone. " Personal Legacy: the Healing of a Nation " brings together some of the 25,000 items left by relatives at the Vietnam Memorial in DC. " A More Perfect Union " deals candidly with the shameful internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II.
Washington DC
That the marshy swamp where WASHINGTON DC now stands was chosen as the site of the capital of the newly independent United States of America says a lot about then-prevalent attitudes toward government. Washington, District of Columbia (the boundaries of the two are identical) also known as " DC " and " The District " can be unbearably hot and humid in summer, and bitterly cold in winter. Such an unpleasant climate, it was hoped, would discourage elected leaders from making government a full-time job. This disdain for politics is still apparent: DC is run as a virtual colony of Congress, where residents have just one, nonvoting representative and couldn't vote in presidential elections until the 23rd Amendment was passed in 1961.
Other than the federal government, tourism is DC's biggest industry. The city attracts almost twenty million visitors each year. Conveniently, most arrive in midsummer, when the lawmakers have gone home, so overcrowding is rarely a problem. The nation's showcase puts on quite a display for its guests, and admission to virtually all major attractions is free. The most famous sites are concentrated along the central Mall , including the White House, individual memorials to four of the greatest presidents, and the superb museums of the Smithsonian Institution. Downtown, however (broadly speaking the area immediately north of the Mall, between the White House and the Capitol), can seem very empty, even intimidating, at night, and you're more likely to spend your evenings in the hotels and restaurants of the city's more motherly neighborhoods, such as historic Georgetown , arty Dupont Circle and the funkier Adams Morgan district.
Old Post Office
1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW, at 12th St. Closest Metro stop is Federal Triangle. Mid-April to mid-Sept MonSat 10am9pm, Sun noon8pm; rest of year MonSat 10am7pm, Sun noon8pm. Admission free. tel 202/289-4224, www.oldpostofficedc.com
Built in 1899, the fanciful Romanesque Old Post Office , just across from the FBI, is one of the most recognizable of downtown's monuments. Its glorious galleried interior is now known as the Pavilion, in which guise it supports hundreds of shops, stalls and a food court. The more clued-up visitors make a beeline here, rather than to the Washington Monument, for their first aerial view of the city. The clock tower (mid-April to mid-Sept daily 8am11pm; closed Thurs 6.309.30pm; rest of year daily 10am5.45pm; free; tel 202/606-8691) stands 270ft above Pennsylvania Avenue, and the glass elevator ride allows you to see the iron, glass and wood interior in all its fine glory.
National Zoo
3001 Connecticut Ave NW; closest Metro stop is Woodley Park-Zoo. Buildings open daily May to mid-Sept 10am6pm; rest of year 10am4.30pm. Grounds daily May to mid-Sept 6am8pm; rest of year 6am6pm. Admission free. www.si.edu/natzooo/
Few people realize that the National Zoo , up in the north of town but a short walk from the Metro, forms part of the Smithsonian ensemble which at least means that admission is free. It sprawls down the steep slopes of the gorge cut by Rock Creek, with trails through lush vegetation and comparatively humane simulations of the home environments of more than three thousand creatures. Among the zoo's star attractions are the pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, who arrived from the People's Republic of China in December 2000. The pair fills the absence left by the passing of Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing, the famous pair presented by Beijing during Richard Nixon's 1972 visit. The best time to catch the duo is first thing in the morning. In addition to the expected menagerie of giraffes and elephants, birds and bees, and lions and tigers, the zoo (or BioPark as it likes to call itself) boasts an unusual feature in its Think Tank , where orangutans assemble, commuting to and from their cages as they please by means of overhead cables across public areas of the zoo.
Corcoran Gallery of Art
500 17th St NW; closest Metro stop is Farragut North or Farragut West. Mon, Wed & FriSun 10am5pm, Thurs 10am9pm. Admission $5, free on Mon and on Thurs after 5pm. tel 202/639-1700, www.corcoran.org/
Just down the street from the White House, the Corcoran Gallery is one of the oldest and most respected art museums in the US. It's also one of the nicest to visit in DC, with good guided tours (daily except Tues), an excellent gallery shop and a caf that features rousing gospel Sunday brunches. Especially strong on American art from frontier artists like Remington and Bierstadt, to portraiture by Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins, and modern works by Calder, Warhol and Rothko it also includes a sampling of Dutch masters, medieval tapestries and French Impressionists. In the Salon Dor (Gilded Room), an eighteenth-century Parisian interior has been re-created to stunning effect, with floor-to-ceiling hand-carved paneling, gold-leaf decor and ceiling murals.
Newseum
1101 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA. Closest Metro stop is Rosslyn. WedSun 10am5pm. Admission free. tel 703/284-3544, www.newseum.org
Under the auspices of the Freedom Forum, in whose headquarters it stands, the Newseum provides an interactive look at the history, theory and practice of news. A 126-foot-long video wall displays live satellite newsfeeds and daily front pages from around the world, and the News History Gallery features a storyboard timeline with historic front pages ( Jesse James Assassinated! Nixon Resigns !). If you can beat the crowds, try your hand at editing, reporting or TV announcing. Outside, the Freedom Park (daily dawn to dusk; free) features various "icons" of freedom parts of the Berlin Wall, a South African ballot box, and a toppled statue of Lenin among them. The world's first Journalists Memorial , a 24-foot-high spiraling glass prism, is etched with the names of nearly a thousand journalists killed while reporting. The Newseum is scheduled to move to downtown DC in 2005.
National Museum of African Art
South side of the Mall at 950 Independence Ave SW; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. www.si.edu/nmafa
Built in 1987, the curved and domed National Museum of African Art holds more than six thousand sculptures and artifacts, both spiritual and functional, from the numerous tribal cultures of sub-Saharan Africa. The permanent collection ranges from Nigerian carved-ivory cult figures to Zairean mother-and-child fertility fetishes and puppet heads from eastern Mali. Look out for an extraordinary seventeenth-century bronze from the Lower Niger, consisting of a vase swarmed over by eight bizarre chameleons, all cast in one piece. While the museum celebrates the " Art of the Personal Object ," highlighting the grace of everyday objects such as combs and pipes, much of its sculpture is highly abstract, and its influence on the Cubists is obvious.
About half the space is devoted to changing exhibitions on specific regions, and the gift shop sells woven and dyed fabrics and clothes, as well as books and postcards.
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW; closest Metro stop is McPherson Square or Farragut West. Continuous free tours TuesSat 10amnoon; additional tours in summer. Tours (tel 202/456-7041, www.whitehouse.gov ) start from the bleachers on the Ellipse, south of the White House. In winter simply join the queues. However, in spring and summer you must pick up tickets as early as possible (they've usually all gone by 8.30am and on some days they've all been spoken for as early as 6.30am) from the Visitor Center at 1450 Pennsylvania Ave (daily 7.30am4pm; tel 202/208-1631)
For nearly two hundred years, the White House has been the residence and office of the President of the United States. Standing at the edge of the Mall, due north from the Washington Monument, this grand, Neoclassical edifice was completed in 1800 by Irish immigrant James Hoban, who modeled it on the Georgian manors of Dublin. Each of its presidential occupants has made his mark: Thomas Jefferson added the first toilets, just before the British burned the place down in the War of 1812. It was quickly rebuilt and then expanded, often in such a hurry that the whole building was on the verge of collapse. Harry Truman had to move out for four years from 1948 while the structure was stabilized: all the rooms were dismantled and a modern steel frame was inserted. Truman also added the balcony to the familiar south side portico.
Though many visitors are surprised by how small and homey it is, security at the White House is every bit as tight as you'd imagine. Protesters are still allowed to set up camp opposite the main entrance, but the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue immediately outside was closed to traffic in 1995, shortly after the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
White House tours consist of a lot of waiting around followed by a quick shuffle through the basement and up to the ground-floor reception rooms, then peeping in at a succession of plush, railed-off rooms filled with portraits of ex-presidents. In summer, the gardens are sometimes opened for afternoon tours, and at Christmas there are special evening tours of the festively decorated interior. US citizens may reserve tickets for a guided tour by contacting their Member of Congress although this must be done well in advance.
If you're interested in the history of the place and its occupants, you may find the Visitor Center , a couple of blocks southeast on Pennsylvania Avenue, more rewarding than the White House itself. It's filled with photos and film footage of First Families and their distinguished guests, including a portly President Hoover playing "Hooverball" with a group of lumbering judges, and the Wright Brothers showing off their latest airplane. In one inaugural portrait after another, a drawn and exhausted president hands over power to his beaming successor.
Freer Gallery of Art
South side of the Mall, Jefferson Drive at 12th St SW; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. www.asia.si.edu/
From the day it opened in 1923, the Freer Gallery has been one of the more unusual Smithsonian museums. Put together and paid for by railroad millionaire Charles Freer, it revolves around more than one thousand prints, drawings and paintings by London-based American artist James McNeil Whistler the largest collection of his works anywhere. The collection also includes Chinese jades and bronzes, Byzantine illuminated manuscripts, Buddhist wall sculptures and pieces of Persian metalwork, all collected by Freer under Whistler's tutelage. Among other works are pieces by Whistler's contemporaries Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder and John Singer Sargent.
In addition to his portraits and landscapes, Whistler is represented by an entire room the Peacock Room . Its original owner commissioned Whistler to execute a painting for the mantelpiece; the artist later covered the walls and furnishings with blue and gold painted peacock feathers. His patron hated it, so Freer bought it and shipped it over from London (he also kept live peacocks in the museum's central courtyard).
Bureau of Engraving and Printing
One block south of the Mall at 14th and C sts SW; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. MonFri 9am2pm (with extended evening hours from 57pm in summer); MayAug arrive early to pick up a timed ticket; SeptApril no ticket necessary. Closed Christmas to New Year. Admission free. tel 202/622-2000, www.moneyfactory.com/
In most ways, a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is like visiting any other printing plant. The difference is that the presses here crank out millions of dollars in currency every day, $120 billion a year. It's a surprisingly low-tech operation: the bills come off in huge sheets, which are sliced up into single bills by ordinary paper cutters, checked for defects and loaded into large wheelbarrows. The Bureau also produces all US postage stamps. A short film explains the basics of intaglio printing, and you can watch it all happen from a glassed-in upstairs gallery.
Phillips Collection
1600 21st St at Q St NW; closest Metro stop is Dupont Circle. TuesWed 10am5pm, Thurs 10am8.30pm, FriSat 10am5pm, Sun noon5pm. Admission $7.50. tel 202/387-2151, www.phillipscollection.org
The Phillips Collection , one of the country's most extensive assemblies of modern paintings, starts off with a variety of proto-modern artists such as El Greco and Turner, before hurrying via French Impressionism to the real heart of the show hundreds of works by Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Rothko, O'Keeffe, Klee and many others. The building adds to the experience: part is displayed in the Phillips family's ornate 1890s mansion, the rest in a 1960s purpose-built gallery space, all of it recently renovated. Popular free concerts take place in the oak-paneled Music Room on Sundays (SeptMay 5pm); reserve in advance for free gallery tours on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2pm and free gallery talks on the first and third Thursdays of the month at 12.30pm.
Jefferson Memorial
West Potomac Park, Tidal Basin near 15th St SW and Ohio Drive; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. Daily 8ammidnight. Admission free. www.nps.gov/thje/home.htm
Completed in 1943 and modeled on his country home, Monticello, the Jefferson Memorial consists of a shallow dome hovering over a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third US president. The interior walls, encircled by an Ionic colonnade, are carved with Jefferson's words, and an inscription around the frieze reads: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
The Tidal Basin , which fills most of the space between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, was created in order to prevent the western end of the Mall, including the spots where the two memorials sit, from being inundated by Potomac floods. The reflections off it are especially pretty in spring (usually early April), when the rows of Japanese cherry trees come out in full bloom.
National Gallery of Art
North side of the Mall, Constitution Ave between Third and Seventh sts NW; closest Metro stop is Archives-Navy Memorial. MonSat 10am5pm, Sun 11am6pm. Admission free. tel 202/737-4215, www.nga.gov
Though the visually stunning National Gallery of Art , the nearest of the Mall museums to the Capitol, is not in fact a government institution, it fully deserves its name. It owes its prominence to the efforts of the industrialist Andrew Mellon , who bought the building and donated most of the paintings. Many were purchased from the cash-poor post-revolutionary government of the USSR, where they had previously hung in the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Mellon's family has continued as benefactors, raising countless millions to build I.M. Pei's modernistic East Building in 1978.
The original Neoclassical gallery, designed by John Russell Pope in 1941, is now called the West Building and holds the bulk of the permanent collection. Parts of the collection are rotated or sent out on tour, and some rooms may be closed for renovation. To find a particular work, visit the interactive Micro Gallery in the West Building (main floor, Mall entrance).
From the domed central rotunda, where you can pick up a floor plan and gallery guide, a vaulted corridor runs the length of the building. If you only have limited time, latch onto one of the informative daily free tours ask for a schedule at the information desk. Galleries to the west on the main floor display major works by Renaissance masters, arranged by nationality: half a dozen Rembrandts fill the Dutch gallery, Van Eyck and Rubens dominate the Flemish , and El Greco and Velzquez face off in the Spanish , near eight progressively darker Goyas. There's also the only Leonardo in the US, the 1474 Ginevra de' Benci , painted in oil on wood, plus works by Botticelli, Crivelli and Raphael including the latter's celebrated Alba Madonna (1520), one of Mellon's purchases from the Hermitage. The other half of the West Building holds an exceptional collection of nineteenth-century French paintings Gauguin from Pont-Aven to Tahiti, a couple of Van Goghs, some Monet studies of Rouen Cathedral and water lilies, Czanne still lifes and the like. At either end of the building, the skylit, fountain-filled Garden Courts make an ideal place to rest weary feet, while Salvador Dal's The Last Supper overlooks the escalators down to the caf.
The triangular East Building houses twentieth-century paintings and sculpture. As in the Guggenheim in New York, the attention-grabbing spatial choreography of the architecture all but overpowers the works of art. You emerge from under the oppressively low entrance into a central atrium, from where an escalator, literally carved out of a 40ft granite wall, climbs to the main galleries which, squeezed into the corners, can seem like an afterthought. Exhibitions change and go on tour throughout the year, so the bulk of the permanent collection is rarely on display. Nonetheless, you may catch Picasso's haunting Family of Saltimbanques and the very blue The Tragedy , as well as Giacometti bronzes and paintings, plenty of Alexander Calder (whose huge red-and-black mobile is usually in place), early Mirs, some Warhol soup cans and Chuck Close's Fanny a finger painting par excellence . The underground concourse that links the two buildings contains a good bookstore, an espresso bar and a large cafeteria topped by pyramidal skylights and bordered by a glassed-in waterfall.
Korean War Veterans Memorial
West Potomac Park, south of Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. Daily 24hr, staffed 8ammidnight. Admission free. www.nps.gov/kwvm/
The Korean War Veterans Memorial , dedicated in 1995, incorporates a dramatic Field of Remembrance in which nineteen life-sized stainless steel combat troops advance across an open field toward the Stars and Stripes. Between 1950 and 1953, almost 55,000 Americans were killed in Korea (with 8000 more missing in action and more than 103,000 wounded). It's an affecting memorial to an often-forgotten conflict. The memorial lists 15 other countries that sent military forces to help prevent South Korea from falling to communism. A plaque at the flagstand proclaims: "Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met."
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
South side of the Mall at 1050 Independence Ave SW; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. www.asia.si.edu/
The angular and pyramidal counterpart of the African Art museum, the Arthur M.Sackler Gallery contains art works and devotional objects from Asia and the Middle East. Most of the exhibitions are temporary, and occasionally draw from other museums' collections, so it's not possible to predict what will be on display at any one time. However, exhibitions might take in Sackler's noted collection of translucent jade dragons and intricate, three-thousand-year-old bronzes from China; stone deities from India and Tibet; and lushly illustrated early Islamic texts from Iran, gorgeously colored in gilt, silver and crushed stone pigments. Inexpensive posters and prints are sold in the gift shop. Underground galleries featuring temporary exhibitions connect the Sackler to the Freer Gallery and the African Art museum.
Lincoln Memorial
West Potomac Park, at 23rd St between Constitution and Independence aves; closest Metro stop is Foggy BottomGWU. Daily 24hr, staffed 8ammidnight. Admission free. www.nps.gov/linc/home.htm
At the far west end of the Mall, the Lincoln Memorial is modeled on a Doric temple, enclosed by a colonnade and fronted by a long reflecting pool. During the Civil Rights march on Washington in 1963, Dr King delivered his epic "I Have a Dream" speech here. Ironically, when this monument to the Great Emancipator was dedicated in 1922, the crowds were segregated by color even black leader Dr Robert Moton, who gave an address, was forced to watch from a roped-off area to the side.
The Lincoln Memorial is a fitting tribute to the man who put down the southern rebellion during the Civil War and thereby preserved the Union and ended slavery in the US. A craggy likeness of Abraham Lincoln sits firmly grasping the arms of his throne-like chair, apparently deep in thought, while inscriptions of Lincoln's two most celebrated speeches the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address are carved on the north and south walls.
Smithsonian Institution
The cream of Washington DC's remarkable panoply of historical artifacts and fine art works comes under the general auspices of the Smithsonian Institution , which holds the US national collections of everything under the sun. Endowed by an Englishman James Smithson, illegitimate son of the first Duke of Northumberland, who never even visited the US the Smithsonian was established in 1846 "for the increase and diffusion of Knowledge." This broad brief is reflected in its impressive range of research centers and museums. Nine line up along the Mall, four more are just north, and the zoo is a few miles north beyond Rock Creek.
The original home of the Smithsonian, the 1849 Norman-style Smithsonian Institution Building, known as The Castle , stands on the Mall halfway between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. It was at first devoted to scientific research but, as the Smithsonian became more of a museum, the sheer accumulation of items necessitated the construction of the various other buildings along the Mall. The old Castle is now the Smithsonian headquarters and main visitor center , 1000 Jefferson Drive SW (daily 9am5.30pm; tel 202/357-2700), with the latest details on all the galleries available from the high-tech information desk. The ornate tomb of James Smithson (after death, he finally made it to the US) is in an alcove just off the Mall entrance, and the lovely flower-filled Enid A. Haupt Garden (daily: summer 7am8pm; winter 7am5.45pm) fronts the Castle on the south side. You can still get a feel for the days when the Smithsonian was known as "the nation's attic" by visiting the adjacent Arts and Industries Building , DC's first "National Museum," which once displayed the hundreds of objects sent here for safekeeping after the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Although some of the Victoriana artifacts remain on display, the building's main focus now is temporary exhibitions by the African-American History Center and the American Indian and Anacostia museums.
Pentagon
Across the Potomac along I-395. Closest Metro stop is Pentagon. MonFri 9.30am5pm, last tour 3.30pm. Admission free. tel 703/695-1776, www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pentagon/
The headquarters of the US military establishment is one of the world's largest chunks of architecture: though it's only five stories tall, the total floor area 6.5 million square feet is three times that of the Empire State Building. Each of the five sides is more than 900ft long, and the combined length of all the internal corridors exceeds seventeen miles. These and other useless factoids are about all you get from visiting the behemoth building, apart from the opportunity to see at firsthand the people responsible for thwarting the country's adversaries. In the one novel departure from the norm, the service-personnel guides who accompany you walk backward the entire time to ensure that foreign agents posing as gawking tourists don't slip off into the restrooms.
Ninety-minute guided tours used to leave every thirty minutes from the small waiting area inside the entrance. Nowadays, you should call ahead to check on the status of tourist visits. Tours were suspended indefinitely after September 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed a hijacked airplane into the Pentagon, killing nearly two hundred people and destroying a sizable section of the building.
Hirshhorn Museum
South side of the Mall, Independence Ave at Seventh St SW; closest Metro stop is L'Enfant Plaza. hirshhorn.si.edu
Housed in the most clearly modern building on the Mall a windowless cylinder balanced on fifteen-foot stilts above a concrete plaza, looking like a spaceship poised for takeoff the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden holds an extensive collection of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century art. From the main entrance on Independence Avenue, escalators climb to the upper-floor galleries, where major works by Picasso, de Kooning, Mondrian, Pollock, Matisse and many more are on display. The gallery downstairs hosts touring exhibitions, and critically acclaimed films are shown in the evenings (tel 202/357-1300 for details).
A stimulating collection of modern sculpture is displayed in an open-air garden across Jefferson Drive, on the Mall side of the museum. Alongside assorted Moores, Rodins, Smiths and Malliols are two expressive abstract figures by Marino Marini, and a stalwart Yucatn Woman by Mexican sculptor Francisco Zuniga. The landscaped garden, sunk below ground level, perhaps to spare members of Congress from having to look at modern art, is also a nice place for a picnic lunch.
Washington Monument
15th St NW at Constitution Ave; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. AprilAug daily 8ammidnight; SeptMarch daily 9am5pm. Admission free www.nps.gov/wamo
The Mall's most prominent feature, the Washington Monument is an unadorned marble obelisk built in memory of George Washington. At 555ft it's the tallest all-masonry structure in the world. Volunteers started work on it in 1848, but various internal arguments, and later the Civil War, so disrupted construction that it wasn't completed until 1884. When the US Government took over the project in 1876, marble from a slightly different source was used; the transition line where work resumed at the 150ft level is readily apparent.
To visit the monument pick up a free ticket from the 15th Street kiosk (on the Mall, south of Constitution Ave), which allows you to turn up at a fixed time later in the day, or you can reserve with TicketMaster (tel 1-800/505-5040; $1.50). The elevator up takes seventy seconds and deposits you at the 500ft level to enjoy the monument's panoramic 360 views of the city.
National Air and Space Museum
South side of the Mall between Fourth and Seventh sts SW; closest Metro stop is L'Enfant Plaza. www.nasm.si.edu
The National Air and Space Museum is by far DC's most popular attraction, drawing nearly ten million people every year. Most of them may seem to be here on the day you come, but the hangar-like building can accommodate everyone without feeling crowded, and you can always see the hundreds of historic aircraft close up. Hanging from the rafters in the main entrance gallery, the " Milestones in Flight " include the handmade plane in which the Wright Brothers made the first powered flight in 1903; Charles Lindbergh 's Spirit of St Louis , which he flew solo across the Atlantic in 1927; the claustrophobic Mercury capsule in which John Glenn orbited the earth in 1962; and the ultralight Voyager , which flew around the world nonstop in 1986.
Most of the museum is taken up with exploring the space race from both American and Soviet perspectives, using models and actual spacecraft to show the development from Werner von Braun's V1 rockets up to a gawky-looking lunar module. " Apollo to the Moon " is one of the most fascinating galleries, centering on the Apollo 11 (1969) and 17 (1972) missions, the first and last, respectively. Check out Neil Armstrong's and Buzz Aldrin's spacesuits, navigation aids, space food, clothes and charts, and the astronaut's survival kit (complete with shark repellent). Further galleries include " Rocketry and Space Flight ," a history of rocket propulsion dating to the twelfth century; " Looking at Earth ," where the aerial photographs include Boston snapped from a balloon in 1860 and German castles recorded by camera-toting pigeons; and " The Great War in the Air ," bursting with dogfighting biplanes.
The museum also shows a rotating program of super-large-screen IMAX movies ($6.50; tel 202/357-1686 for times), all of which have some connection with flying. The Flight Line cafeteria and the Wright Place restaurant enable star-struck families to stay in the building all day.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Constitution Ave at 21st St NW; closest Metro stop is Foggy BottomGWU. Daily 24hr, staffed 8ammidnight. Admission free. www.nps.gov/vive/home.htm
Cutting sharply into the green lawn of the Mall, the small and simple Vietnam Veterans Memorial serves as a somber and powerful reminder of the nearly 60,000 US soldiers who died in Vietnam. The pathway that slopes down from the grass forms a gash in the earth, its increasing depth symbolizing the increasing involvement of US forces in the war. Alongside, a black marble wall is carved with the names of every soldier who died, in chronological order from 1959 to 1975.
The memorial was designed by Maya Lin, a 21-year-old architecture student. When it was first erected in 1982, there was some outcry from veterans' groups about its anti-war connotations. In 1984, to achieve a balance, a more traditional statue of three heroic soldiers was placed nearby, under a floodlit American flag. More lobbying led to the establishment in 1993 of the Vietnam Women's Memorial , which stands in a grove of trees at the east end of the main site; it honors the 11,000 American women who served in the conflict.
The Mall
One of the main features of L'Enfant's grand plan for Washington was a large central parkland. Today the two-mile-long Mall stretches west from the Capitol to the Potomac River. It wasn't always such a carefully manicured park, however: when the Capitol was built, it looked out across a muddy, bug-infested swamp and, by the 1870s, the south side was lined by meat-markets and warehouses and crisscrossed by railroad tracks. For a time a stark reminder of L'Enfant's unfulfilled dream, the Washington Monument was left unfinished for more than twenty years, an ugly stone stump cut off halfway.
The Mall has become DC's most popular green space, used for summer softball games and Fourth of July concerts. Yet its central role in a planned capital city also places it at the very heart of the country's political and social life. When there's a protest gesture to be made, the Mall is the place to make it, whether it's a demonstration by the Million Men marchers of black America, a mass prayer meeting of the Promise Keepers, or the unveiling of the commemorative AIDS Memorial Quilt. In addition to numerous museums, it boasts a quartet of presidential monuments, along with the White House and the powerful Vietnam and Korean war veterans memorials.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Ave NW; closest Metro stop is Metro Center. MonSat 10am5pm, Sun noon5pm. Suggested donation $5. tel 202/783-5000, www.nmwa.org
Housed in a converted Masonic Temple, the National Museum of Women in the Arts , which opened in 1987, is the country's only museum dedicated to women artists. It includes hundreds of works by "unknown" painters a policy inspired by the fact that, as recently as the 1960s, not one female artist was mentioned in the leading American art history textbook. It also features sculptures by Barbara Hepworth and Camille Claudel (Rodin's mistress and assistant) and paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, Georgia O'Keeffe, Mary Cassatt and Elaine de Kooning and has one of DC's better museum cafs, the Mezzanine Caf .
Arlington National Cemetery
Across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia; closest Metro stop is Arlington Cemetery. AprilSept daily 8am7pm; rest of year daily 8am5pm. Admission free. tel 703/695-3250, www.arlingtoncemetery.org
The vast sea of identical white headstones on the hillsides of Arlington National Cemetery is a poignant contrast to the grand monuments of the capital. The country's most honored final resting place was first used during the Civil War, when the grand mansion at the top of the hill, and all the surrounding land, belonged to Confederate leader Robert E. Lee . Nearly 200,000 US war dead lie here. Soldiers who died in world wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam are buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns . An eternal flame marks the grave of President John F. Kennedy , near his brother Robert and next to his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The gravesite of Pierre L'Enfant offers a superb view over the Mall and the District that he designed. The new Women in Military Service Memorial , by the main gate, is one of several memorials to celebrated personnel.
Unless you have strong legs and lots of time, the best way to see the vast cemetery is by Tourmobile, which leaves from the visitor center at the entrance. You can also walk here from the Lincoln Memorial across the Arlington Bridge.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
On Pennsylvania Ave between Ninth and Tenth sts NW, just north of the Mall; closest Metro stop is Federal Triangle. Hour-long tours every 2030min, MonFri 8.45am4.15pm, no reservations. Admission free. tel 202/324-3447, www.fbi.gov
A fortress-like modern building on Pennsylvania Avenue holds the headquarters of the FBI the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the nation's elite law-enforcement organization. Set up in 1908, the FBI came into its own chasing bootleggers and bank robbers like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly during the 1920s and 1930s. Hordes of visitors queue outside, sometimes for more than an hour, to join tours past displays on the infamous gangsters and dangerous subversives from whom the FBI shields the American people (they kept extensive files on Dr Martin Luther King Jr). Ideology aside (the FBI has only just begun to emerge from the shadow of its longtime iron-fisted director, J. Edgar Hoover), the tours rush you through an overview of fingerprinting, ballistics testing and other crime-fighting techniques. What really brings the crowds in, however, is the climactic display of sharpshooting and firepower: agents blast away at cut-out targets with a battery of small arms and automatic weapons.
FDR Memorial
West Potomac Park, south of the Korean Memorial, near the Tidal Basin. Daily 24hr, staffed 8ammidnight. Admission free. www.nps.gov/fdrm/home.htm
The FDR Memorial was opened in 1997, its four outdoor "gallery" rooms designed to highlight the achievements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's twelve years as President. Bronze sculptures of FDR and his wife, Eleanor, along with waterfalls and remembrance pools, offset inscriptions from the president's best-known speeches. In a belated nod to the fact that FDR was crippled by polio (a fact kept from the American people throughout his presidency), it's the first memorial in DC purposely designed to be wheelchair-accessible.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenburg Place SW, off 14th St at Independence Ave. Closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. Daily 10am5.30pm. Admission free . tel 202/488-0400, www.ushmm.org
Nothing in DC is more disturbing than the large and generously laid-out US Holocaust Memorial Museum . Commemorating the persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, it places Hitler in historical perspective while personalizing the suffering of the individual victims.
In addition to case after case of newspapers and newsreels documenting Nazi activities from the early 1930s through the "Final Solution," reconstructions and in many cases actual relics of Warsaw Ghetto streets, railroad cattle-cars and concentration camp barracks fill the top floors. The sheer numbers of people killed is chillingly evoked throughout, first by a whole room filled with shoes stolen from deportees, later by a crisp glass wall etched with the names of the hundreds of eastern European Jewish communities wiped off the map.
Tickets for specific entry times are available free of charge from 10am each day with a limit of four per person at the 14th street entrance. You can also reserve in advance through Tickets.com (tel 1-800/400-9373; fee charged). If you arrive without a ticket any later than mid-morning, you're unlikely to get into the permanent exhibition, but a certain number of temporary displays are usually open to all visitors.
National Archives
North side of the Mall at Seventh St and Constitution Ave NW; closest Metro stop is Archives-Navy Memorial. April to Labor Day daily 10am9pm; rest of year daily 10am5.30pm. Admission free. tel 202/501-5000, www.archives.gov . The Archives' exhibit halls are closed for renovation until 2003 .
On display at the National Archives are the three short texts upon which the United States is founded: the Declaration of Independence , the Constitution and the Bill of Rights . These three original sheets of parchment (three additional pages of the Constitution are not on display), drafted respectively in 1776, 1787 and 1789, are now contained in helium-filled glass cases, which drop underground in case of fire or other threat. You can usually look at them as long as you like, but if there's a crowd you have to shuffle on past. The impressive Neoclassical Greek temple designed by John Russell Pope also displays a 1297 revised copy of the Magna Carta , which established in Britain such basic concepts as trial by jury and equality before the law. The National Archives presents exhibitions and serves as the official repository of all US national records census data, treaties (including the surrender of Japan in World War II), passport applications and genealogical records most of which are kept in storage.
Washington National Cathedral
Massachusetts and Wisconsin aves NW. Bus #30, #32, #34 or #36 from Pennsylvania Ave (downtown) or Wisconsin Ave (Georgetown), or #N2, #N4 or #N6 from Farragut Square. MonFri 10am5pm, Sat 10am4.30pm, Sun 8am4.30pm (open until 9pm on weekdays MaySept). Suggested donation $3. tel 212/537-6200, www.cathedral.org/cathedral .
The twin towers of Washington National Cathedral the world's sixth largest cathedral are visible long before you reach the church's perch on the heights of Mount St Alban in the northwest of town. Built from Indiana limestone and modeled entirely in the medieval English Gothic style, the Protestant church took 83 years to build and measures more than a tenth of a mile from the west end of the nave to the high altar at the opposite end. Among other things, you'll find the sarcophagus of Woodrow Wilson , the only president to be buried in the District, and the Space Window , whose stained glass incorporating a sliver of moon rock commemorates the flight of Apollo 11. From the south porch (near the Washington statue), an elevator ascends to the Pilgrim Observation Gallery , which affords stupendous city views.
For a floor plan and information, descend to the crypt floor, where there's an information desk and gift shop. Guided tours are available on request at the west entrance (MonSat 10am3.15pm, Sun 12.302.30pm; suggested donation $3); ask one of the purple-hatted docents.
Ford's Theater National Historic Site
511 Tenth St NW; closest Metro stop is Metro Center. Daily 9am5pm; theater is closed during rehearsals or matinees, but Lincoln Museum and House Where Lincoln Died remain open. Admission free. tel 202/426-6924, www.fordstheatre.org
Ford's Theater National Historic Site is a beautiful restoration of the nineteenth-century playhouse, which continues to stage regular productions of contemporary and period drama. However, because of its role in one of the greatest national tragedies, it lives a double life as a tourist attraction in its own right. It was here, on April 14, 1865, a mere five days after the end of the Civil War, that Abraham Lincoln was shot by the actor and Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth during a performance of Our American Cousin .
Entertaining talks (hourly 9.15am4.15pm; free) set the scene in the theater itself, after which you can file up to the circle for a view of the presidential box where it all happened, and finally go down to the basement Lincoln Museum . Macabre relics here include the clothes that Lincoln was wearing, Booth's .44 single-shot Derringer pistol and the assassin's diary, in which he wrote: "I hoped for no gain. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone." The mortally wounded president was carried across the street to The House Where Lincoln Died , the Petersen House, where he died the next morning. That, too, is open to the public, who troop through its gloomy parlor rooms to see a replica of the bed on which Lincoln breathed his last.
National Museum of Natural History
North side of the Mall, Tenth St NW and Constitution Ave; closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. www.mnh.si.edu
The imposing three-story entrance rotunda of the National Museum of Natural History feels like the busiest and most boisterous crossroads in all of DC, with troops of screeching schoolkids endlessly chasing each other around a colossal African elephant. Hundreds of other stuffed animals, tracing evolution from fossilized four-billion-year-old plankton to dinosaurs' eggs and beyond, are on display all over the place pick up floor plans and guides at the information desk at the elephant's feet.
Naturally enough, the " Dinosaurs " section is the most popular part of the museum, with hulking skeletons reassembled in imaginative poses and accompanied by informative text, written with a light touch, accessible to children. " Exploring Marine Ecosystems " uses videos, aquariums and the odd furry seal to illustrate life on the "Rocky Shore of Maine" and a "Coral Reef from the Caribbean." Nearby you can admire a rare specimen of the giant squid; scientists don't know quite where it lives, but reckon it grows to fifty feet in length.
Elsewhere, the museum seems firmly locked into a 1950s-style approach to natural history, with a lot of very dated anthropology. Displays on " Native Cultures of the Americas " include the Lucayans (originally from the Bahamas), said to have "vanished" shortly after encountering Columbus. Dioramas of the "primitive" pueblos of the Southwest stand alongside bison, bighorn sheep and other once-wild creatures. Similarly static exhibits cover peoples of the Pacific and Asia, as well as ancient Greece and Egypt.
Upstairs are hundreds of creepy-crawly critters lizards, snakes, tarantulas and the like as well as an Insect Zoo , filled with hundreds of bugs, which you can play with should you so desire. The museum also boasts a truly exceptional array of gemstones, including the legendary 45-carat Hope Diamond that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, on display in a new Gem and Mineral Hall , which features natural and reconstructed environments, interactive exhibits and hands-on specimens.
As at the Air and Space Museum, you'll also find a rotating selection of IMAX movies ($6.50; tel 202/663-7400 for times). As you'd expect, the films shown here portray more earth-bound themes, the massive screens plunging you far beneath the oceans or whisking you away to the Galapagos.
Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery
Two important cogs in the Smithsonian system are closed for renovation until 2004. Separated from the main Mall galleries, the SmithsonianAmerican Art Museum , Eighth and G streets NW (closest Metro stop is Gallery Place-Chinatown; www.nmaa.si.edu ) may not get the traffic of the other museums, but it's perhaps the most worthwhile of all, and in the past has mounted thought-provoking shows. Opened in 1829, the museum was known as the National Gallery of Art before Andrew Mellon later usurped that name. Since 1968, it has shared the Greek Revival-style Old Patent Office with the National Portrait Gallery. The collection ranges from splendid nineteenth-century examples of "Art of the American West" including almost 400 paintings by George Catlin, who spent six years on the Great Plains to Revolutionary portraits and dramatic American landscapes. More recent pieces have been displayed on the top floor in the vaulted and colonnaded Lincoln Gallery , which in 1865 hosted President Lincoln's Inaugural Ball and remains one of DC's most celebrated interior spaces.
The National Portrait Gallery at Eighth and F streets NW ( www.npg.si.edu ) holds pretty much what you'd expect: paintings, sculptures and photographs of famous and not-so-famous people, from Pocahontas to Mark Twain, and includes Gilbert Stuart's famous "Lansdowne" portrait of George Washington, as well as portraits and sculptures of every president. There's also the odd masterpiece on show like Edgar Degas' severe portrait of his friend, Impressionist Mary Cassatt.