We slept in a little bit this morning, then had a quick breakfast and caught the 10am hotel shuttle to the Metro Station.
We got off the Metro at the Federal Triangle station and went up to the surface. We boarded the tour bus at the nearby stop. We had bought a 2 day bus pass yesterday that allowed us to get on and off the bus anywhere along its route so we got off at The Newseum and went inside.
Inside you can wander around on your own and look at the many displays or you can take a 1 hour tour that shows you the highlights and then you can wander around after. The entrance fee is good for 2 days, and a true news junky could easily spend 2 days here. I wish we had more time but as it was, we spent 3 hours here. We will definitely come back here the next time we are in Washington DC.
Our first stop on the tour was the Berlin Wall display. An actual segment of the Berlin wall is here. It is the largest display of actual sections of the wall outside of Germany.
This is the Western side of the wall.. full of graffiti and free expression.
And the Eastern (Communist) side of the wall..
From this exhibit we then went to the Katrina exhibit. There is a wall of different newspaper headlines covering the event.
Who among us can forget watching Anderson Cooper’s nightly broadcast. He stood each night in front of a boarded up rug shop, and the Museum has those plywood boards on display.
Another display is The Presidents Photographer.. Many great photographs of Presidents are in this gallery.
Another display is the 9/11/2001 display. Hundreds of front page headline newspapers fill the room and a piece of the radio tower that was on the roof of the building.
There is a gallery dedicated to Tim Russert.
And a First Amendment display. Simply put, the First Amendment of the United States of America protects your right to worship freely, to speak, read and write freely and to meet freely.
There is also a display for the fallen heroes of the press. The Journalists Memorial
After our tour we went up to the 6th floor and outside onto the observation deck to have our pictures taken with the Capital Building as our backdrop.
There are many many more displays in the Newseum, too many to photograph or describe in a short blog. Don’t miss seeing the Newseum when you visit Washington DC.
We left the Newseum and walked to the Capitol Building. Along the way we passed the Canadian Embassy.
At the Capitol Building we took a few more photos. I turned around to get this shot of the George Washington Monument.
We re-boarded our tour bus and drove a short distance to the Jefferson Memorial. Thomas Jefferson was one of the principal authors of the Declaration of Independence and was the 3rd President of the United States.
Back on the bus we went to the next stop on the tour, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.
Roosevelt was also known by his initials FDR and was the 32nd President of the United States of America. He was the only President to serve more than 2 terms.
The memorial is divided up into 4 outdoor areas or rooms. Dedicated on May 2, 1997 by President Bill Clinton, the monument, spread over 7.5 acres, it traces 12 years through a sequence of the four outdoor rooms, one for each of FDR's terms of office. Sculptures inspired by photographs depict the 32nd president alongside his dog Fala. Other sculptures depict scenes from the Great Depression, such as listening to a fireside chat on the radio and waiting in a bread line.
A bronze statue of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt standing before the United Nations emblem honours her dedication to the UN. It is the only presidential memorial to depict a First Lady.
Water is a prominent feature throughout the memorial.
Back on the bus, we headed to the Metro for the ride back to our hotel. Our visit to Washington DC is over, tomorrow morning we are back on the road again, heading North into Pennsylvania. We will be spending the next week or so driving Westward along the Historic Lincoln Highway and visiting a couple of historical sites along the way.
To see all of our photos from today you can click on this link to our FLICKR site.
No comments:
Post a Comment