Letter from Washington

From the airport Bevan took us on to our hotel in Washington. His service was five-star and we found ourselves much in his debt, all the more so during our later stay with him in Princeton.

NATIONAL CATHEDRAL FROM BUS

For an impression of Washington we boarded a hop-on hop-off bus, using a two-day ticket that another resident had handed into the hotel on day one. A thoughtful receptionist passed it on to us – a saving of 35 dollars. Washington proved to be a pleasant surprise, a city of green spaces, impressive buildings, skateboarders, joggers and fat cops – some very fat cops.

The tubbiest were on museum duty, checking visitors' bags and waddling down the corridors with the usual guns and other apparatus attached to their belts. They were an impressive presence though they could not conceivably have chased a felon.

The cops guarding the White House were an exception. They were lean and keeping a careful eye on the crowds that had flocked to the famous gates on Pennsylvania Avenue. Many people were busy taking snaps of each other. We followed suit.

It's not every day that one gets to see the White House. The banshee wailing of sirens and flashing of lights announced a VIP exit from the White House. Out of the gates sped a phalanx of motorcycle outriders and important black cars. We surmised that the chief must be going about his business.

Our hotel was located within walking distance of many of Washington's prime attractions. The White House was 30 minutes away, with the Washington Memorial obelisk a few hundred metres beyond it.
The Capitol and the row of museums and galleries that lined Connecticut Ave were about as far again.

We walked from one end to the other and we walked back again. By the end of three days we knew our way around. Least fun was the trek back home in the heat of the evening. Finally we discovered a handy bus service that we wished we'd found earlier. Washington is a visitor-friendly city. It's easy on the eye; the skyline is low-rise. No building can be more than 20 feet taller than the width of the street it faces – or so we were informed.

Pedestrians are well catered for. They get a visible count-down on a clock attached to traffic lights each time they have to cross a street. Sometimes it's as little as 15 seconds. At others it's closer to a minute. But they always know how much time they have to cross.

Of the museums for which the city is known, the Smithsonian is pre-eminent. This is not a single institution, as we discovered, but a group of museums and galleries – 19 in all, concentrated in Washington but extending to other cities. We visited all we could. I loved the Museum of American history. It came alive, as delightful for adults as their children. I found myself inadvertently stepping aside, alerted to possible traffic by the hoots, honks and sirens from the transport halls.


Inevitably, the Air and Space Museum stole the show. Entry was free, as to all the Smithsonians. Parents with eager kids gathered on the steps for the inevitable bag searches at the entrance. The halls were huge, with aircraft strung from the ceilings. Adults climbed into the planes and space capsules with the same enthusiasm as their children. The whole history of flight was there to behold.

The exhibits included America's rockets and missiles. To my surprise I noticed that the height of a Minuteman missile was wrongly given as 8 metres rather than 18, a fact I helpfully brought to the attention of the Information Desk. “We know,” a young man replied disarmingly: “Not many people notice”.

For all the charm of the museums, it was in the city's art galleries that we spent most time. Barbara led the way. She was familiar with many of the works and thrilled to be able to see them in the flesh. I was bucked myself. Some of the galleries were vast. Trying to see everything was impossible. Just finding one's way around was hard enough. We would choose a couple of halls and concentrate on those, generally covering the years from the impressionists to the present day.

Everywhere we bumped into visitors taking photographs, often of companions posing in front of the paintings or sculptures. It was a practice quite foreign to Europe, one I found both intrusive and irritating. From time to time the attendants would call out “no flash”. For the rest they ignored the snapping. Nor did they appear too concerned when visitors leaned over to peer closely at a valuable painting, behavior that would have sounded alarms at similar galleries in Berlin.

Knowing how late summer could arrive in North America we had come well prepared for cold weather. What I hadn't anticipated was the heat. The US east coast is not Canada. Washington simmered in the 90s on the day we arrived; so did New York a day or two later. What a relief it was to stagger back into an air conditioned bedroom after a sweaty day's sightseeing.

Two coach services, Boltbus and Megabus, link the two cities. It's about a five hour ride, depending on the traffic (which, at the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson, gets very congested indeed). We were impressed by the service. Our Boltbus was comfortable and equipped with a wifi link. As everywhere in North America, most passengers passed the journey immersed in their own private electronic worlds.