The XMEN Clan Forums

Any recommendations on what to see?

I got reservations at the Hyatt Regency down the street from the Capitol building for less than $80 per night off of Priceline.com. I love Priceline.

We are going to see the Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian. We are there for 3 days and going to do some walking around.

David

If you haven't been to the Vietnam Memorial, I suggest you do, and plan to spend an hour or two there. It's a very somber place, and not at all like I imagined it would be. There's also the WWII Memorial that is open near the Mall, and while you're over there, you might as well check out the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.

The Smithsonian is spread out all over town, so that would be a day in and of itself if you went to every part of it. There is a Gray Line "Tour" that runs from Grand Central Station all around to all the major sights in town. It's a self guided tour, and you can get on and off at will like a bus line. It's a pretty neat tour, and you get to see a lot of the town on the route with historical commentary and facts along the way, and the buses run every 15 minutes at each stop all day.

Another neat part of town that's not really on any tour is the Georgetown part of the city. Because of the rules governing renovation / Demolition of buildings of a certain age, there are a lot of interesting uses of old buildings, and an underground mall. The entrance to it is an old Firehouse. You could literally spend an entire week in DC and not really see all of it, but that should be enough for the 3 days you'll be there.

Photography note: bring a wide angle lens, and make sure it's fairly fast if you've got one. The Smithsonian is pretty poorly lit, and it's a challenge to get good photos inside. And the buildings and monuments are so big, you're going to want a wide angle without having to be 2 miles away to get the whole thing in the picture.

Word of warning: you could easily spend a day or more in each of the museums at the Smithsonian. Oh and make sure you see the holocaust memorial... I was there when it opened, and it was very moving.

Visit Arlington Cemetery. And if they still offer tours, the congressional building, the supreme court building, and the Pentagon.

Basically, you can spend your whole 3 days doing nothing but visiting places along the Mall.

Most of the posts above summed up the major things to do in D.C. I'd come down and hang out with ya for a little while if I didn't have to work :-/ I'm only about an hour or so out from D.C. Have a great time though! I always loved going down there on field trips with school!

What they said... except I was extremely disappointed by the Air and Space Museum. When I asked the tour guide why they had rooms and rooms of aircraft, why (at that time) did they only have FOUR from WWII? The tour guide actually said that they "try to focus on civil aviation"....... that kind of upset me. I said, "without the military, civil aviation might not even exist!" and walked away from the tour. While not necessarily true... w/o military interest, airplanes might still be a fancy attraction at the local county fair.

Other than that... and being searched everywhere I went... D.C. was a lot of fun! Arlington was definately my favorite stop of the entire trip.

Just got back and WOW! what a unique and historic city. We spent HOURS and HOURS looking at stuff in the museums. I wore my legs out 3 days in a row.

First of all...the American Indian Museum was BEAUTIFUL! Amazing stuff.

The Air and Space Museum was cool. The Hirshorn modern Art Gallery was wild and thought provoking.

The Lincoln Memorial at night was beautiful and moving. Chinatown was wild and the noodles were incredible.

The Metro Area Transit subway is the way to get around, very fast and cheap.

Our hotel was 2 blocks from Union Station and 4 blocks from the National Mall so everything was in close proximity to us. I will post the links to our pictures on Snapfish as soon as I can.

David