Weekend Trip to Washington

On July of 26th 2017, my sister and I were deciding to go and visit her university where she got her Ph.D. As the college is located in Virginia, Fairfax which is just 20 miles from Washington. We decided to make a weekend trip and visit both places. We fixed the date of June 29th and June 30th.  So as we know Washington is famous for American history, culture the capital of the USA, famous monuments and lots of things. So we decided to make the list of the places which we can visit.

1. Lincoln Memorial
2. Washington Monument
3. White House
4. Capitol Hill
5. Pentagon
6. War Memorial
7. Smithsonian Zoo
8. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Museum
9. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

We wanted to visit more places, but we were short of time. As the drive to Washington from Stamford is almost 5 and a half hours.

We wanted to see a couple of more places which is “GOT” (Games of Thrones Cafe) & Geroge Town Bakery for their famous cupcake.

There are loads of hotels are available in Washington, but I believe you stay in Arlington which is just a bridge away from the heart of Washington, it’s inside the state of Virginia. And we planned to stay there, and the hotel was way cheaper than any available inside the Washington CBD.

There are few things which you should make sure you carry while visiting Washington, there are must bring if you are going in summer.

1. Comfortable Clothes (Summer light clothes)
2. Sunglasses
3. Sunscream
4. Quarters (if you plan to use your car, for parking)

 

29th of June 2017

We started from Stamford around 8, we wanted to leave early, but we got delayed as we wake up late. So we began the journey towards Washington. We stopped at a couple of places before we reached Washington. We decided to check in the hotel first and then go to the places to visit. So we arrived at Arlington checked in our hotel. The hotel receptionist asks that if we want the Hop-On Buses for Sunday so that we can see everything. We as a fool decided to take the car. So we decided to visit the Pentagon, It was already evening, so we reached Pentagon.

Suggestion ***

Try to take the Hop On Hop bus, Don’t try to use your car for city travel, because finding parking is the most prominent pain in Washington. Weekends especially on Saturday and  Sunday many places parking are free, this is the reason you won’t get the parking easily. You will waste your time to find the parking.

Pentagon

Beautiful structure, designed with elegance but still the most powerful building in the world. Here some of the pictures which I took.

then we started for Lincoln Memorial.

Lincoln Memorial & Washington Monument

The best time to go to the Lincoln memorial is either dawn or dusk, I prefer Twilight. It took us almost 30 mins to find the parking, It was Saturday, so the parking was free. Below are some of the pictures I took

We almost spent 2 hours there, We just stood there and watched the sunlight fading away. After that, we decided to go and visit the Game of Thrones  Cafe. As we approached the cafe, we see a queue of people almost for one full block. And it was already 9 PM, We decided to call night and grab some food and called the day.

 

30th of June 2017

We started the day early, had breakfast in the by 8, and decided to leave for Smithsonian Zoo. The best part of Washington and Smithsonian it’s free you can go free.

Smithsonian Zoo

Its a small zoo, especially located in the city, but have some fascinating animals. The best is Gaint Panda (must see). Please do visit the zoo and buy the map it cost 5 dollars which goes towards zoo maintenance. I have just taken very few pics.

To find parking near the Space and Air Musume, it took us 45 mins. Finally, we got parking. We parked the car and started the walk.

 

Smithsonian Space and Air Museum.

Beautiful place to be in if you love the thrill of the space and flights it has all the generation aircraft including the current, It has space and the fighter, commercial and space flights. You can get customize dog tags in the museum you can pay 10 dollars and get your dog tag.

Smithsonian Natural History

A beautiful place to be in, all the history of the world exists inside the building. It’s 4 floors which contain history from all over the world.

Capitol Hill

we took the pictures for Capitol Hill from the open lawn of the Smithsonian Museum.

Then we wrapped the day and took our car and tried to visit the Geroge Town Bakery, but never knew that it will be again a block-long queue which is in front of the bakery to go inside. We decided not to take the cupcakes as we were already late. We decided to say bye to Washington and start for Stamford. It has been a fantastic experience to visit such an incredible place