Our Washington DC Itinerary

See the full post of our time in Washington DC - Part 1 & Part 2

So I started this post shortly after we were in DC back in April and it's been sitting in my drafts ever since. I figured I might as well finish it, so here it is finally!

This was our second time visiting Washington DC, the first time being 10 years ago when my parents took us on a family trip there. 

Since we had been before and we knew we were only going to have a day there this time, we had a little bit of an idea of what we wanted to do. 

The rain kind of threw our plans off a bit as we didn't get to do quite everything we wanted, but overall it was a fun day!

Hotels in downtown DC were quite expensive, so we opted to stay at a Mariott in Maryland for a couple of reasons. One reason being price; but also because we had a rental car and I didn't want to deal with driving and parking in DC. Parking is hard to come by and very expensive. This hotel was near a metro station (the Largo Town Center station.) that also offered parking. 

Just a note on the hotel: it was very nice, new, and clean. And the rooms were pretty big too! Great for a family with room to spread out. We would definitely stay here again. Prices, of course, fluctuate, so while it was affordable when we were there, it might not be so much in the future!

We had a bit of trouble figuring out the metro cards (the DC metro system is VERY different than what we experienced in Europe. Specifically way less efficient and way less easy to navigate!), but an employee helped us figure out and purchase them.

And since we were there just after the cherry blossom festival, we got these fun metro cards! And yes, I totally saved mine for my scrapbook.

Once on the metro we rode to the Smithsonian - National Mall stop. It was about a 20-25 minute ride and took us right to the National Mall.

We checked out the sites around the mall before walking over to get some pictures of the Jefferson Memorial. This was the only area that had some cherry blossoms left, so we made sure to get plenty of pictures! We decided not to walk all the way over to the memorial to save some time and it wasn't a priority to see it up close.

Next we walked over to the WWII memorial. While not a huge memorial, there is still a lot to look at. We spent a fair amount of time walking around here and taking pictures.

We then walked to the Lincoln memorial and then to the Korean War memorial. It was raining pretty good by the time we reached the Korean War memorial, so we just took a couple of pictures before continuing on our way.

It stopped raining for a bit as we walked toward the White House, but then started raining again once we got there. By the time we reached the front of the White House, the rain turned into a pretty good downpour so we hurried into a nearby gift shop to wait out the rain.

We were all pretty hungry by the time we finished walking around the gift shop (after picking up a few things of course!) so we decided to try to find a place to eat some lunch. I looked on my phone and found a Pret nearby, so we walked there. 

By the time we finished eating the rain had finally stopped. We made our way along Pennsylvania Avenue, where we had to stop by the J. Edgar Hoover building. My sister was very excited to see it!

We then headed to Paul bakery; a bakery we really enjoyed while we were in France. I got an almond croissant, which was delicious!

After our snack we walked to the National Air & Space museum. The museum was pretty crowded, so we just quickly wandered through the exhibits without spending too much time there.

After we finished at the museum, we weren't really sure what else to do as it was nearing 5 o'clock, so we decided to walk over to the Capitol building. 

When we visited back in 2008, we didn't get to go to the Capitol building, so it was neat to finally see it up close!

There was quite a few people around taking pictures, so we just took a few before walking around to the backside, where there was no one! So if you visit the capitol, make sure to walk around to the back as well.

For dinner we went to Good Stuff Eatery which was extremely disappointing. Despite having fairly good reviews, it was pretty terrible. The staff were not friendly, the burgers were just okay, (really nothing special), and the fries were just disgusting. They were so greasy and limp they couldn't even hold up under the weight of their own grease. My family loves fries, and we couldn't even eat half of them they were so bad! Definitely wouldn't recommend eating there! 

Overall though, we had a fun day in DC! If you've never visited it's definitely somewhere I would recommend visiting! There is SO much to see and do! And now that I live closer I'm looking forward to exploring all that it has to offer!