Trip to Washington DC and Road Trip through Virginia ...

...On Thursday Birgit, Christoph, Markus and I started our trip to Washington DC (duration with Megabus around 4 hours) in order to visit one of our best friends Stefan (see the related blog) who is currently making an internship there. We did a sightseeing tour for around one day and Washington DC is a very nice city which is completely different to New York. There are less people on the streets; everything is more relaxed; no skyscrapers, many government buildings and museums etc. – see below some impressions of the places we have visited...

The White House:

The Capitol:
Reflecting Pool with the Monument (remember the scene from Forrest Gump ;-) ):

Arlington National Cemetery with Iwo Jima (well known Monument - also from the movie "Flags of our Fathers"):

Maybe the future US President:
Moreover we have seen:
- The United Postal Service Building (Old Post Office)
- The National Archives (with the “Declaration of Independence”, “Bill of Rights”, etc.)
- Library of Congress
- FBI
- Union Station (very nice!!)
- Pentagon
- Some other memorials (Vietnam, etc.)
- Etc.

On Friday afternoon we rent a car (Toyota RAV4) and started our road trip with the first station at Manassas National Battlefield Park - quite impressive battlefield from the American civil wars.

After that we continued our trip on Route 66 to Front Royal where we entered the Skyline Drive on the next day. Front Royal is a little and typical US town. Quite small but you can find nearly everything there because of the tourists that make here a pit stop before entering the Skyline Drive. This road is one of the best driving routes in the States which takes you through the very nice Shenandoah National Park.
After this we visited Monticello where you can see the house Thomas Jefferson (3rd President of the United States (1801–1809)). He designed the whole house by himself and it is really worth to see. The garden of the house and everything in this area is very nice, but it was very hot when we were there (more than 30° and the humidity was amazing high). This house can also be seen on a US coin:
Moreover we visited Richmond, the capitol of Virginia. This town is not very exciting as it is small and there are not a lot of interesting buildings to see, but if you are in this area you should make a short stop there.

On the last day of our trip we visited Colonial Williamsburg (former capitol of State Virgina)
and Jamestown where the first settlement of America took place. In Williamsburg we visited the old village which has been rebuilt and the people are living there like in former days.
When you enter/leave this village you go over a bridge where you can find some nice texts - I liked this one very much:

After this we enjoyed the last hours of our road trip at the Buckroe Beach in Hampton, VA.

The whole trip was really exciting and driving in the US is better than in Austria. The people on the streets seem to be more relaxed and the gas price is still very low in comparison to Europe.

Johannes