Hello friends, how are you? It’s been a little while, but I’m glad to be stepping my toes back into blogging again. Today I’m going to be talking about my trip to Washington D.C., what I did, saw and where I ate! Let’s jump right into it!

I spent a weekend (plus two days, so four in total) in Washington D.C. I’ve never been to the city before so like visiting anywhere for the first time can be very overwhelming.

We left Toronto at 7:20 a.m. and the flight was just over an hour, which was great. We flew with Air Canada Express, which when I booked I didn’t realize I had picked ‘Express’. I’m not sure if it means it gets you places faster… or the plane is just smaller, but it’s definitely smaller and we ended up having to check in our carry-on bags (with no extra cost, both ways… so much for trying to fly with a carry-on only for the first time! 😂).

We landed, got a taxi and made it to our hotel around 9 a.m. and it already felt late (since we’d been up since 3:30!). The hotel we stayed at (Club Quarters Hotel) didn’t have a restaurant attached to it, which is strange, but not completely out of the norm. There was a breakfast restaurant across the street, which was where we had our first meal… too bad the experience wasn’t the greatest.

The restaurant was called Le Pain Quotidien and it had a very bakery like feel. You seat yourself if you’re dining in, the only problem with that was the fact that it took forever to be waited on. I ordered a hot chocolate with a ham and cheese croissant sandwich. We got out food before our drinks, which was strange but at least it was all delicious.

After a long first meal, it was time to start exploring the city. We were a 10 minute walk from the White House so off we went.

The house is surrounded by a big gate (to obviously keep people out… although on our last day there someone tried to run into the White House with a delivery truck 🙄 which meant they had everything blocked off… this makes me wonder how often stuff like that happens 🤔). We found out that you can do a White House tour; we thought it was for US citizens only, but a guard told us it’s open to anyone, you just have to send a letter to your ambassador, wait for it to get approved, which could take up to 9 months, then you’ll have a date booked… so don’t expect it to happen on your stay. It would have been cool, but I’m good to just see it from the outside.

From there we walked to the Washington Monument. We walked all the way to the base of the monument. You can book a ticket (I’m not sure if it’s free or not, since we didn’t do it) to go inside and climb the 898 stairs to the top. Apparently there are windows at the top you can look out of that give you a beautiful view of the city (so I’m told!). Again, walking around the base was good enough for me.

We did a little more walking then decided to call it for the day since we were dead tired from getting up so early. We did go to an Italian restaurant for dinner, which was sublime! We went to Il Piatto, I had a rosé wine with ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach, yum! Then for dessert, tiramisu!

Day two we started off bright and early. We went to a place called The Third Rail for breakfast (not realizing it was part of the Hilton hotel, so it was a buffet breakfast that wasn’t the greatest… I ended up having to get a McDonald’s coffee after, which isn’t as good as it is here for some reason).

Once we had food in us, we walked to the stop closest to us for our hop on/hop off bus, the Big Bus. We bought the 3-day pass and we relied on it to get us around the city. It did the job, the only compliant I’d have with it is that it didn’t have live commentary – you had to listen to a recording with earbuds. It wasn’t always the greatest, but we made it through.

We passed Capitol Hill (which is named appropriately because it’s on a hill). First we saw it in passing, but we walked it on our last day.

We got off at The Wharf, which is a nice little area on the Potomac River. Lots of places to eat and some local shops. They had a bookstore, that I of course went into! I didn’t buy anything (surprisingly, although if I had more time I’m sure I would have). It was called Politics and Prose and I highly recommend if you’re in Washington D.C. We also stopped in front of Ben and Jerry’s because they had these cow chairs that I thought were amazing!

We got back on the bus to get off at the Lincoln Memorial, which was probably the busiest tour attraction we encountered throughout the 4 days. It was cool to see it in person, and to see the statue of Lincoln himself. I think it’s worth to see.

We then did a walk through of the Vietnamese War Memorial. It’s a wall that gradually gets bigger than smaller again with all the soldier’s names who passed . It’s very solemn.

We also saw the World War II Memorial, which was really elaborate.

We got back on the bus after my mum got a free ice cream 😂 (the truck that was serving us just drove off mid order so she was left with ice cream in her hand, and the money in mine 😂).

We passed Chinatown and got off the bus again and stayed in the area because we had a nighttime tour booked and that was the area we had to catch it. So we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, I got coconut shrimp with fries, yum!

Our nighttime tour was with Old Town Trolley Tours and it was such a great tour. We had a live person giving us a tour with personal antidotes, which made it even better. We had three stops on this tour, which I didn’t even know had stops. We stopped at the Lincoln Memorial (again), Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial (a statue that was based off a very famous photo) and to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

I would highly recommend this tour because it was just so good and you don’t feel like it’s 2 and a half hours because you’re enjoying yourself.

Because we saw the Jefferson Memorial from afar the night before, it gave us the inspiration to actually go and visit it since I thought it looked pretty cool. And it did. Jefferson is HUGE inside the memorial. Another memorial I think is worth seeing. That was how we started Day 3.

After seeing Jefferson, we actually headed to Virginia to go to Arlington National Cemetery. I thought this would be an hour tour, not realizing just how big the cemetery is! We ended up spending most of the day there, but it was worth the time. At first we thought we’d just walk around, but I told my mom it’s probably worth it to spend 40$ to take their trolly tour because that way you know you’ve seen everything and you’re not wiped out from walking, so yes highly recommend the tour! Obviously, you will see grave upon grave for all military servicemen and women, anyone who has ever served in the US military (whether it be marines, air force, etc.) you have the option of being buried there. But there are other things to see too. The trolly made 3 or 4 stops.

The first one was to JFK’s final resting place. I had to do some additional Googling because I didn’t know who else was buried there, so along with him and his wife Jackie, their two infant children who didn’t make it are on either side of them and their markers just say “Son” and “Daughter”. There is also the eternal flame that is lit just above JFK’s grave.

The next stop we got off at was The Tomb of the Unknown Solider, which is guarded 24/7. We got there just as they were changing the guard, which was lucky timing. It’s fascinating to watch them do that. The tomb is actually empty now because with the advancement in DNA technology, they were able to identify soldiers, but they’ve kept this tomb as a reminder, since before it was used as a place for people to go to mourn who didn’t have a grave because their body was unknown.

The last stop, and probably where we spent the most time, was Arlington House. This was the first memorial to George Washington, even though he never actually lived there. This was one of the first plantation homes in the US, in which the house was built by enslaved black people. From my further readings, it was turned into a military cemetery after the Civil War when Robert E. Lee owned the property, but didn’t pay taxes on it so the government took it back. You can tour the first floor, and the grounds around the property and the slaves quarters. The cemetery website has more information, if you’d like to read and know more.

After that, we thought we’d try and get in one last museum for the day since there are so many (19!). So we made our way to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. We did a quick loop around, just checking things out – it had what most museums have, the animals and dinosaurs, minerals, etc. etc. so we didn’t stay too long, plus we were getting kinda tired.

We pretty much wrapped the day up there. We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner (which is such a different experience than it is back home, since we only have 1 in all of Ontario so it’s always a 1-3 hour wait for a table, and they don’t do reservations because they’re lame). So going in right away was so different. I ordered the Bang Bang chicken and shrimp, yummy! The drink I had was hella strong!

On our last day in D.C. we started the day on the right foot. I was craving waffles, so a place called Founding Farmers D.C. came up (it was a little hard to find because the streets are on an angle!!) but it was so worth it! I ended up getting chocolate chip pancakes (4 of them!😱) but it was all so good! I’m sad I didn’t find this place sooner!

From there we walked to our bus stop and got off at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. What you need to know before going, you have to get (not purchase, as all Smithsonian museums are free) a ticket before entering. You must pick a time slot too. I wish we had known that before we got there because the next available time slot was 2 p.m. which was cutting it close to the time we needed to be at the airport… but we got them anyways.

In the meantime, we went to the US Botanical Gardens. This was a great way to walk around and be one with the plants. I love how tranquil it feels inside. We saw everything from flowers, to medicinal plants, to coffee trees, fruits and vegetables. I loved every minute of it.

While we continued to kill time that’s when we walked up the Capitol Hill… that was fun (hehe). We walked all the way around it seeing it from the other side.

Then it was time to go to the Air and Space museum. It was so cool to see about the invention of flying, all the planes, they had a speed room, a planets room, and one for the moon. Lots to see, and definitely doable in an hour… since we had to head to the airport!

And that is where I conclude my tour of Washington D.C. I had such a great time. I highly recommend it to anyone, but especially the history buffs because there is just so much history to be seen and learned. I just scratched the surface in this post, but I hope you enjoyed and maybe even learned something!

Have you been to Washington D.C.? Would you like to go? Let me know in the comments below, thanks for reading! 🙂