25 April 2019 - Washington DC

Another nice day today and after a quick breakfast we decided to take an Uber to Arlington Cemetery, America's most famous burial ground. Being spring time here and with the trees in full blossom Arlington was a magnificent sight. We had a quick look around and did what everyone does and that is to visit the JFK burial site. As you look around in every direction it's rolling green hills and white marble monuments. Next we decided to walk from Arlington to the Lincoln Memorial across a bridge over the Potomac.

There are quite a few school groups in town as the moment, but Washington is so large and spread out that it is not really crowded anywhere, and the Lincoln Memorial was well attended but not crowded. Just like our last visit, Abe Lincoln is still sitting there in his large marble chair looking out over the National Mall. Our next visit was to the Martin Luther King memorial which is also a massive statue of the man with the surrounding walls quoting some of his most famous sayings.

From here we continued our walk around a beautiful lake which features the Thomas Jefferson Memorial which ia another wonderful shrine to another famous American.

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, was a Founding Father of the USA and the third President of the United States. As a product of The Enlightenment he understood the necessity for the separation between Church and the State and ensured it was enshrined in the US Constitution. After spending a little time with Thomas we walked to the Washington Monument with the idea of riding to the observation platform at the top, only to find that it is closed for renovations until August this year. By then it was well past mid afternoon and we continued our walk back to the hotel. Mark's watch estimated that we had walked 13km which is probably the longest walk I've done in decades.

It was really nice kicking back in our hotel until it was time to choose a place to have dinner. I've generally found that in the US one tends to eat a lot of hamburger/pizza/sandwich type meals and as we were in the mood for something a bit more substantial and balanced we chose a little French restaurant called Bistro Biz and had the best meal of the trip so far - Beef Burgoignon for me and Duck Comfit for Mark. 

A memorable meal indeed, followed by desserts to match. Tomorrow is our final day here in Washington DC and we plan to spend it at one of the major shopping centres here in the capital, and then on the following day it is time for the long flight home.