Winter adventure: Washington DC

A little bit of background

If you've come straight to this post, it's a part of a series of four that documents our winter adventure in 2016 to Chicago, NYC and Washington DC. The LA prelude post provides the proper background on the trip, so my suggestion is that you read that one first.

I am writing this post in 2024, about a trip we made in 2016 to fulfil my dream for a winter adventure. My winter adventure companions were W (husband) and E (daughter, aged 16 at the time). I’ll refer to them separately as W and E and collectively as WE throughout this post. Our 2016 winter adventure entailed seven days in Chicago and nine in NYC, with a day trip to Washington DC.

I'd always wanted to visit the American capital as there are so many iconic and historic places to explore, and loads of museums. Our DC wanderings were done as a day trip on the train from NY Penn Station to Washington Union Station. We'd decided to make the day trip to avoid packing up from the New Jersey loft we were staying in and overnighting in DC. Tickets without baggage were also inexpensive. I wish in hindsight that we'd stayed over, as there were things I wanted to see that I missed out on, largely because it was winter and most of the museums shut early.

I've summed up our Washington DC experience at the end of this post and given my reflections on it meant to me.

A day trip to the capital from NYC

We had an extremely early start to our day, arriving at Penn Station around 6am. The train trip down to Washington DC was lovely, though, and it only takes a couple of hours. This was December 29 and the weather was cold and bleak all day. There was no snowfall in Washington DC like we'd experienced in Chicago, but it felt colder somehow. I have very strong memories of the biting cold. We look freezing in all the photos I've included in this post!

We spent our day entirely on foot, starting at Union Station. The main sights in the city are clustered relatively close together, along and between Constitution and Independence Avenues (the National Mall). We walked the length of Constitution Avenue from Union Station down to the Potomac, branching out down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Then we walked across Arlington Memorial Bridge to the cemetery. The round trip was 12km, a huge walking day! There is a metro if walking's not your thing but I always feel you see more and get a better sense of a place by walking.

Here we are at the start of our day, at Union Station. The photos show Lower Senate Park in the background, towards the United States Capitol.

The station sits behind the United States Capitol so the seat of the US Congress is the first major landmark on the journey towards Constitution Gardens. The building is rather impressive, in both size and architecture. It was built in 1800, after Congress was moved first from Philadelphia to New York City and then to Washington DC. The building was added to across the 19th century to accommodate the growing union of states. The dome that sits on top of the building was expanded in 1850, standing three times the height of the original dome.

The below collage is a collection of shots of the Capitol taken over the course of our day and from different positions and perspectives. My favourite one is the middle shot, taken at dusk.

Here's a snapshot of our walk down Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues. We passed the FBI Headquarters (cool!) and the Lone sailor sculpture at the Navy Memorial. The sculpture stands 2 metres tall and shows a sailor and a duffel bag atop granite pedestals. The sailor's base is engraved with the words, honor, humility, courage, and devotion. The statue was sculptured by Stanley Bleifield and dedicated in 1987.

The star of the Washington DC show is the green space at the bottom of the National Mall. Most of the major monuments can be found there. We didn't have time to visit all the memorials, but here is my experience of those we did see.

The Vietnam and Korean War Veterans Memorials

The Vietnam and Korean War Veterans memorials sit on either side of the Lincoln Memorial in West Potomac Park. Korean War veterans are memorialised by 19 statues (top lefthand photo below) representing US military personnel in action. The memorial was dedicated in 1995 and since our visit, a granite memorial wall engraved with the names of the US personnel who died in the war has been added.

The walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial were completed in 1982 (righthand shots) and the Three Soldiers statue that you can see in the bottom lefthand photo was added in 1984.

Two black granite walls engraved with the names of the service members who were killed or who remain missing dominate The Vietnam Veterans Memorial that sits in Constitution Gardens. The granite walls are each 75 metres long, and are composed of 72 black granite panels with a high-polish finish. I believe that there was some controversy when the walls were first erected, relating to the basic design, black colour, and lack of ornamentation. I think the design is in keeping with subject of the memorialisation. The sombre atmosphere at the memorial, made even more so by the bleakness of the day we visited, seems fitting to me.

The Lincoln Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

We had to be selective about what we did on our day in Washington DC as it was impossible to see everything. The Lincoln Memorial was at the top of my list because of its iconic status and historic significance. There's something rather awe-inspiring about experiencing such sights that you have only ever seen in books and film and TV.

Here's the Lincoln statue inside the Memorial, in all its glory...

The first thing to notice is the size and nod to classic Greek temples of the Memorial itself. The exterior is made of Yule marble quarried from Colorado, and measures 60 metres by 36 metres, and is 30 metres tall. The 36 fluted columns represents the 36 states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death. The frieze (top middle photo below) above the colonnade is inscribed with the names of those 36 states and the dates on which the entered the Union. The Memorial was dedicated on May 30, 1922.

Inside the Memorial, there are three chambers divided by Ionic columns. The statue of Abraham Lincoln sites in the open-air central hall. The sculpture took four years to complete. It cuts an imposing figure in the central hall at 6 metres tall and as the lone structure inside the hall. It's a bit hard to tell from my photos, but I remember thinking the statue was huge, and bigger than I expected it to be.

The Reflecting Pool is also an impressive sight, largely for the dramatic reflection of the Washington Monument. The Pool was constructed in the two years following the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial and spans 620m in length and 50 metres in width. I know it's just a pool of water, but I felt the weight of history standing there, reflecting on the historic events that took place on the site, particularly Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in August, 1963.

The above photos of the Reflecting Pool do show the Washington Monument reflection, but it was pretty bleak at that point in the day. The below photos give a different perspective, taken later from the Washington Monument. Stunning, right?

The White House

Full disclosure, I wasn't very impressed with the White House. Perhaps my expectations were too high for seeing "the real thing". I thought we'd be able to get much closer than this. You can see in the righthand photo below how far away the residence was from the fence. We couldn't see much! Granted, this was December 2016 and preparations were afoot for Trump's inauguration in January (😠), but overall, our experience was somewhat disappointing. We didn't linger at the White House, but at least I've seen it!

Arlington National Cemetery

We'd previously been to the military cemetery in Hawaii at Punchbowl and I was keen to visit Arlington, the largest cemetery in the United States National Cemetery System. Arlington has over 400 000 people buried in its 259 hectare grounds. The cemetery is steeped in history, first established in 1864 during the American Civil War.

There are many notable burials in the cemetery. The grave of President John F Kennedy is shown in the bottom middle photo.

We spent quite a bit of time at the cemetery, but it's so big that we didn't see all of it. The cemetery is divided into 70 sections and includes a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arlington Memorial Amphitheatre (bottom left and righthand photos above). We were fortunate enough to witness the Tomb Guards' routine for watching over the graves that has been in place since 1937.

The cemetery occupies pride of place across the Potomac River from the National Mall. It sits at an elevated position, affording lovely views of the city.

Washington Monument

The Washington Monument is an obelisk that sits at the other end of the National Mall to the Lincoln Memorial, built to commemorate George Washington, the first President of the United States. The obelisk's foundations and internal construction are made of bluestone gneiss and granite, and the exterior of three different kinds of marble. Construction began in 1848 and was completed in 1884. Fifty American flags, one for each state, fly permanently around the large circle on which the Monument is centred.

My favourite shots are the one we took at dusk (middle shot) and the one at the bottom left of the collage that shows the Capital building in the background.

The Monument is both the world's tallest predominantly stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk, reaching 170 metres. Apparently it was once the world's tallest structure until overtaken by the Eiffel Tower! As you can see in my photos, it is indeed tall, dwarfing the people walking around it.

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Our final activity of the day was the National Air and Space Museum, one of the Smithsonian group, at the top of the National Mall. The main building opened in 1976. By 2023, it was the fifth-most visited museum in the United States and the twentieth-most in the world. The museum is MASSIVE, covering 71 000 square metres. I have to admit that we were all pretty had it by the time we got the museum and only saw a fraction of the exhibits. Still pretty, cool, though.

The end of the day

As mentioned at the start of this post, we took the train from NY Penn Station to Union Station in Washington DC for a day trip to the city. We'd booked the earliest and latest possible trains to make the most of the day, but walking the 12km roundtrip from the station to Arlington and exploring a bunch of memorials (and one museum!) was exhausting. It was a freezing cold day, got dark early and the museums all shut around 5pm.

Travel tip: The American capital is doable as a day trip from NYC, but it makes for a long day. There's so much to do and do! In hindsight, we should have stayed the night as I think two to three days is a good amount of time to properly see the city.

We were back at Union Station by around 6pm but our train wasn't due to depart until 10.30pm. I remember that we tried to change the ticket but the rebooking fee was prohibitive. We thought about doing an evening bus tour to fill in the time but just didn't have the energy. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time poking around Union Station. It's a pretty station, though.

Our Washington DC experience

The below photo of E and me sums up how we felt at the end of the day - knackered. That said, we'd had the most fascinating and icon-filled day. I fell in love with Washington DC and would love to return to see more of the city. There something of an elegance to its beauty. If you're a history buff, Washington DC is a must. There are loads of museums to visit if that's your thing. The city sure was pretty at dusk, too.

If you haven't already, check out my posts on our LA prelude to winter, and my posts on Chicago, and NYC for more on our winter wanderings.