Washington, D.C. '99: The Complete Guide with Monuments, Museums, Arlington, Annapolis and Best Bets f or Kids

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This partial excerpt, from the Pleasures and Pastimes section, gives you a taste of what Washington, D.C., has to offer and the sights and scenes that make it a great place to visit.
Government and Politics in Action

C-SPAN buffs will want to visit Capitol Hill, where they can observe the House and the Senate in action. The Supreme Court's hearings are also open to visitors. Washington also has many government buildings that you can tour without watching its denizens at work: These include the Pentagon, the FBI building, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve. And let's not forget the White House.
Military Memorials, Pageants, and Museums

Washington is a fitting spot to honor those who served and fell in defense of our country. More than 200,000 veterans are buried in Arlington National Cemetery, a place where you can trace America's history through the aftermath of its battles. The guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns is changed frequently with a precise ceremony. Near the cemetery is the United States Marine Corps War Memorial, where there's a sunset parade in summer. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has more than 58,000 names etched in black granite; the Korean War Veterans Memorial consists of a statue and a reflecting pool. Next to the statue that serves as the Navy Memorial is a visitor center and a theater that continuously shows the 30-minute, 70-millimeter film "At Sea," a visually stunning look at life aboard a modern aircraft carrier.
The Firearms Museum has hundreds of guns, from those used in the Revolutionary War to high-tech pistols used by Olympic shooting teams. The National Museum of American Jewish Military History displays weapons, uniforms, medals, recruitment posters, and other memorabilia from every war in which this country has fought. Inscribed granite slabs in Pershing Park recount battles of World War I. The National Cryptologic Museum tells the story of military intelligence from 1526 to the present.
The Marine Corps Museum follows the corps from its inception in 1775 to its role in Desert Storm. The Washington Navy Yard has two military museums and a destroyer you can tour. The Navy Museum chronicles the U.S. Navy's history from the Revolution to the present. Exhibits include the foremast of the USS Constitution and a fighter plane that dangles from the ceiling. Children especially enjoy peering through the operating periscopes and pretending to launch torpedoes. In front of the museum is a collection of guns, cannons, and missiles. An annex is full of unusual submarines.
From June through August the Navy and the Marine Corps put on a multimedia Summer Pageant at an amphitheater across from the Navy Museum.
Architecture and the Decorative Arts

Washington National Cathedral, the sixth-largest cathedral in the world, will impress even the most hardened cathedral viewer with its Gothic arches, flying buttresses, and imaginative stonework.
Washington has many buildings of architectural interest, filled with exquisite period furniture, draperies, and china. The White House is the most obvious example of such a building. You can also visit the DAR Museum, with its 33 period rooms decorated in styles representative of various U.S. states and its 50,000-item collection of Colonial and Federal silver, china, porcelain, and glass; and the Hillwood Museum, a Georgian mansion that contains a large collection of 18th- and 19th-century French and Russian decorative art, such as gold and silver work, icons, lace, tapestries, china, and Fabergé eggs.
The Renwick Gallery, the Smithsonian's museum of American decorative arts, has exquisitely designed and crafted utilitarian items, as well as objects created out of such traditional crafts materials as fiber and glass. Displays include Shaker furniture, enamel jewelry, and the opulently furnished Victorian-style Grand Salon.
The open interior of the massive redbrick Pension Building, one of the city's great spaces, has been the site of inaugural balls for more than 100 years. The eight central Corinthian columns are the largest in the world, rising to a height of 75 ft. This enormous edifice houses the National Building Museum, devoted to architecture and the building arts. It outlines the capital's architectural history, from its monuments to its residential neighborhoods.
Gardens

The paths of the Constitution Gardens wind through groves of trees, around a lake -- a memorial to signers of the Declaration of Independence -- and past the sobering Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Dumbarton Oaks's 10 acres of formal gardens, in a variety of styles, are some of the loveliest in the city. The grounds of Marjorie Merriweather Post's Georgian-style Hillwood House have a French-style parterre, a rose garden, a Japanese garden, paths through azaleas and rhododendrons, and a greenhouse containing 5,000 orchids. Exotic water lilies, lotuses, hyacinths, and other water-loving plants thrive at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, a sanctuary of quiet pools and marshy flats. The gardens are home to a variety of wetland animals, including turtles, frogs, muskrats, and some 40 species of birds.
Parks

C&O Canal National Historical Park has one end in Georgetown and the other in Cumberland, Maryland. Canoeists paddle the canal's "watered" sections, while hikers and bikers use the 12-ft-wide towpath that runs alongside it. In warmer months you can hop a mule-drawn canal boat for a brief trip. You can also walk over a series of bridges to Olmsted Island in the middle of the Potomac for a spectacular view of the falls.
There are playgrounds and picnic tables at the 328-acre East Potomac Park as well as opportunities for tennis, swimming, golf, and miniature golf. Double-blossoming cherry trees line Ohio Drive; they bloom about two weeks after the single-blossoming variety that attracts throngs to the Tidal Basin each spring.
The waters of the Potomac River cascade dramatically over a steep, jagged gorge, creating the spectacle that gives the 800-acre Great Falls Park its name. Hikers follow trails, climbers scale the rock faces leading down to the water, and experienced kayakers shoot the rapids. There are also mule-drawn boat rides.
The 1,800 acres of Rock Creek Park have bicycle routes and hiking and equestrian trails, a planetarium, and an 18-hole golf course.