19. Washington DC,

We managed to squeeze in a brisk walk after breakfast from our Philadelphia hotel down to the waterfront to take in the sunshine, harbour and a variety of boats then boarded a metro train to the railway station ready our final Amtrak ride. I got chatting to a lovely lady on the platform, while we waited 20 minutes for our train, who had lived in 'DC' for a few years so I grilled her completely on the best things to do whilst we were there. We got to travel through a few more states, Delaware (what did Della wear boys?! the oldest state), Maryland and Virginia before pulling into Washington, which lies in the District of Columbia and not in a state for some strange reason. It is a totally planned city from scratch, on the Potomac River, and has always been predominantly African-American. It considers itself to be a monumental imperial city and the most powerful place on earth as well as one of the smallest capitals.
Our Inn was in the trendy residential Adams Morgan District full of bars and restaurants and was a quaint little place more like a cross between a bed and breakfast, a boutique hotel and a hostel. Lots of help yourself to drinks, cereal bars and chocolate and with large shared, sociable breakfast tables. We even had a cosy veranda with seats to sit on with a cup of tea and a one hundred and two year old fire station opposite us, where I spent a very nice ten minutes chatting to a hunky firefighter who explained all about it to me. We met some very friendly people here, a lady geologist at breakfast from Montana, an Aussie family another breakfast who's son was out here to run the New York marathon this weekend, Justin our lovely young server at a bar who spent about half an hour telling us things to do in Washington, Wilmott, a Kenyan bar man who supported Arsenal and spoke footie with Steve, Chester a very friendly big chap from Memphis who tried to explain the rules of baseball to me and with whom we had some good topical political discussion over dinner. We are still to find a Trump supporter.
Washington was a really interesting few days, educational and a terrific place to visit but without the crazy, fun factor of New York. The National Mall is a two mile long park with the huge Lincoln Memorial at one end, the Washington monument in the centre, a myriad of Smithsonian museums down its length and the Capitol at the other end; think Dan Brown 'The Lost Symbol'. We used the versatile CAPITALBIKESHARE scheme and spent a day cycling between all of the poignant memorials: Jefferson, FD Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr, Lincoln, Vietnam, other war tributes, all very beautifully constructed and presented. We also visited the Capitol building (very grand) where we had a really good tour, and I concluded my American history education and was brought right up to date with the whole political scene plus I now understand Congress. We saw the White House, although due to building works we were behind a fence, saw many historical buildings and even popped into the new Trump Hotel in the original National Post Office building; very smart. We finally got into some of the museums on our last day, and in Washington everything is free. The Natural History Museum, National Air and Space Museum, American Indian Museum, the History of America Museum, Gallery of Modern Art and we could have done many more - it's all here and so well done.