Washington Monument and the Capitol Through the Columns of the Lincoln Memorial

On our first full day in Washington DC, we found a pastry shop nearby in Crystal City to start with. In Crystal City it is all office buildings and hotels above ground, but below ground are rather extensive malls connected by tunnels. We took Metro again to the Mall downtown. Yesterday’s icy wind had died down and it was rather pleasant out. So, we decided to spend more of the day outside. We rented bikes from a Capitol Bike-Share kiosk. We used a similar system before, in Montréal. They are kind of clunky compared to our own sweet mounts, but they were serviceable and way more convenient to find in DC. We rode from the Smithsonian castle to the Lincoln Memorial and then from there to the Jefferson Memorial. The trick of this system is to keep your rides to less than thirty minutes. If you go over thirty there is a surcharge, but if you stay under than you continue to ride at no extra charge. Along the way we stopped at the Washington Monument, the WW II, Korea and the Vietnam Memorials. We hoofed it from the Jefferson Memorial to the Holocaust Memorial and had lunch at the café there. This pretty much completed our circuit of the Tidal Basin. We toured the American History Museum and viewed the Whitehouse, before taking the train back to Virginia. We had Ethiopian for dinner, which was very good.