WASHINGTON AND WONDERFUL FRIENDS

The next day of our tour was to visit war memorials, the White House and have a free afternoon visiting the Smithsonian Institute. However, I had made arrangements to visit  blog friend, Denise from "An English Girl Rambles", during our free afternoon.

First stop was The Arlington Cemetery, "the nations most sacred shrine". It has been a military cemetery since 1864. Over 300,000 veterans from all the nation's wars are buried here. John F Kennedy, Jackie and Robert Kennedy are buried here. There are almost 7,000 burials per year.

Just outside the cemetery is the the Marine Corps Memorial called the Iwo Jima Memorial. It is in memory of all Marine Corps personnel who have died in defence of their country since 1775. It is a beautiful, huge statue designed by Felix de Welden based on the iconic photo by Joe Rosental at the battle of Iwo Jima.


The Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial is actually a 7.5 acre park designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halpin. There are a sequence of 4 outdoor rooms, one for each of his terms in office. There are many wonderful sculptures, waterfall features and engraved in rock quotes of FDR. Here he is with his dog Fala and one of his quotes..

Then it was off to the Vietnam's Veteran's Memorial Wall designed by Maya Lin. There are two walls 75m long meeting at an angle and sunk into the ground. The stone, chosen for its reflective properties is from Bangalore, India. On completion in 1993 there were 58,191 names etched onto the wall, each year more are added.

We returned to the steps of The Lincoln Memorial. We should be seeing the famous reflecting pool, which stretched all the way to the Second World War Memorial and the Washington Memorial, however it is being reconstructed at the moment. It is 618m long and 51m wide.
The tall obelisk is The Washington Memorial, built in 1848 as a tribute to George Washington's military leadership from 1775-83 during the American Revolution.

On the steps I saw this plaque. I was actually standing where Martin Luther KIng, at the march on Washington for jobs and freedom, gave his famous speech...."I have a dream...." in 1963. I remember seeing it on the news, there were 250,000 people there.

The Korean Memorial is a walled triangle of greenery. There are 19 stainless steel statues, by Frank Gaylord, of a squad on patrol. On one wall there is 2,500 photos sandblasted into the wall. It was getting close to 12.30 and I was getting excited about meeting my blog friend, Denise, but alas we lost 2 members of our tour group and we had to wait for the guide to look for them.

Then we got caught up in traffic when we went to the White House. It was designed by James Hoban and built in 1872-1800 from white painted sandstone. It has been refurbished many times by different presidents. This is the front view but not the view often seen on TV, that is at the back. Security was very evident. Then we set off to drop those who wished at the Smithsonian Institute. Once again we were stuck in traffic. By then I was getting into a panic as I had made arrangements to meet Denise and Gregg at our hotel at 12:30. It was already 1:30. Luckily I could call her on our mobile/cell phone. They were at the hotel and happy to wait for us. More traffic, more traffic and more traffic........

One and a half hours later the bus pulled into the hotel driveway. I felt so bad asking someone I have never met to wait so long. However, Denise and Gregg are such a wonderful couple, they were happy to see us and they had no complaints about the delay. They took us to Georgetown and a lovely riverside restaurant for lunch.

 They introduced us to crabcakes and they were delicious as we sat by the pretty Potomac River. Denise and Gregg were such good company and it was like we had known each other for ages. I look forward to continuing our friendship via blogging.

They took us to see the Capitol, as our tour did not include this, much to Bill's disgust. I believe it was something to do with security not allowing any parking anywhere near the building.  The Capitol is the meeting place for Congress. It was completed in 1811 but there have been many alterations since. "Freedom" is the colossal statue on top of the huge dome.

MEMORABLE WASHINGTON

We arrived in Washington late in the afternoon. The tour group was taken to dinner and then on a night tour of the illuminated memorials.

The first one was The John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts. It is a huge building, so big that I couldn't fit it in the lens of my camera. It was in the pipeline for many years but it was Kennedy who pushed to bring culture to the Capital Washington. It was partly funded by the Federal Govt and partly by private funds.The Kennedys donated $500,000 and Jackie was the chairman of the board.

It was opened in 1971. Bust of JFK by Robert Berks.

It is a beautiful building inside too. Many donations were made by other countries. Marble from Italy, glass from Sweden, Aboriginal Art from Australia and other items worth millions from other countries.

Then we all piled in the bus again and went on to the World War 11 Memorial. Built by private donations it was opened in 2004.It is surrounded by 56 pillars representing states and colonies. There are twin pavilions with waterfalls representing the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans where battles were fought. The Freedom wall has 4,000 gold stars representing the 400,000 Americans who lost their lives. It was a spectacular memorial built between the Lincoln and Washington memorials.

The Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln's statue inside the temple. It is huge!