Things to do
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Library of Congress
Built in the eighteen nineties to show that a young republic could match Europe, the Jefferson building gives a Great Hall of marble, mosaic and gilding, with the domed main reading room visible from an upper gallery. A Gutenberg Bible on vellum and what survives of Jefferson's own library are on permanent show. A tunnel connects to the Capitol. Timed passes are needed for the gallery in busy months.
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Lincoln Memorial
Thirty-six columns, one for each state in the union at his death, surround a seated Lincoln carved in Georgia marble, with the Gettysburg Address cut into one wall and the second inaugural on the other. An inscribed step marks where King spoke in 1963. The chamber stays open through the night, when the reflecting pool holds the obelisk and the crowd is thin.
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National Air and Space Museum
The Wright brothers' machine, Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis and the command module that brought the first lunar crew home sit in one building on the Mall. Timed entry passes are free and go quickly in holiday weeks. A second site beside Dulles airport holds what will not fit here, a space shuttle and a Blackbird among it, and takes half a day of its own.
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National Mall
Three kilometres of lawn run from the Capitol steps to the Lincoln Memorial, with the Smithsonian museums lined along both flanks and the Washington Monument at the hinge. Crossing it on foot in summer humidity defeats most itineraries, so a bicycle or a Metro hop between ends saves the day. Demonstrations have used this ground since the suffrage marches. Evening, when the monuments light up, is the hour to walk it.
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National Museum of Natural History
A bull elephant stands under the rotunda dome, and the halls beyond hold the Hope diamond, a fossil sequence running from the first cells to the present, and an ocean gallery with a right whale overhead. Family crowds arrive by mid-morning and the gem rooms bottleneck. The butterfly pavilion wants a separate timed ticket. Entry to the museum itself, as with its neighbours, is free.
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United States Capitol
Cast iron makes the dome, raised during the civil war on Lincoln's instruction that the work continue as a sign the union would hold. Tours start in the underground visitor centre and take in the rotunda, the old Senate chamber and Statuary Hall, where a whisper carries across the floor. Passes are free and booked ahead. Gallery seats for a sitting come through a member's office.
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Washington Monument
Marble of two shades marks where work stopped for over twenty years around the civil war, then resumed with stone from a different bed. The finished obelisk reaches a hundred and sixty-nine metres and held the world height record briefly. A lift climbs to small windows at the top, on free timed tickets released in advance. The grounds give the cleanest sightline along the Mall.
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White House
Tours of the mansion have to be requested through a member of Congress or an embassy, months ahead and never guaranteed, so most visits amount to the railings on Pennsylvania Avenue and the lawn view from the Ellipse. A visitor centre nearby shows furniture, film and objects from the residence. British troops burned the house in 1814, and the rebuilt sandstone survives under the paint.
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Georgetown
Federal brick rowhouses climb from the Potomac up Wisconsin Avenue in a quarter that predates the capital laid out around it. Shops and restaurants crowd the M Street corner, while the towpath of a disused canal runs quietly behind them down to the waterfront park. No Metro station serves it, so a bus, a bicycle or the walk from Foggy Bottom gets a visitor in. University crews row at dawn.
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National Museum of African American History and Culture
Adjaye's bronze lattice corona steps outward in three tiers, a form taken from Yoruba carving. History begins below ground with the Atlantic slave trade and climbs by ramp through emancipation, segregation and the movement, which takes hours and lands heavily. Music, sport and visual art fill the upper floors in a lighter register. Timed passes are released in advance and taken within minutes.