The Capitol

Day 16 - August 12th

We started the day with a room service breakfast, it seemed rude not to make use of the suite and it's not every day you get to sit around in a plush bathrobe in your hotel suite, reading the newspaper (and pretending to be Donald Trump). After that we took a walk along the boardwalk which turned out to be much less exciting in daylight, particularly as it had started to rain. For a minute I thought I might be in Blackpool.

We then hit the road again, skirting round Philadelphia for a second time and heading on down to Washington DC. As we were driving in we drove past a row of boarded up houses just a couple of blocks from our hotel and started to wonder what the neighbourhood was like, but Washington seems to be one of those odd American cities that switches from destitute to grandiose in the blink of an eye and luckily our hotel fell in the grandoise section. Our room wasn't quite as plush as the last suite but still had a separate lounge area with sofa so much plusher than most of the hotels we've stayed at.

One great thing about Washington is that most of the museums are free and in summer are open until 7.30pm. Since we only have two nights in the city we took advantage of this and got the American History Museum done on this first evening. There were loads of unique artifacts including the original 'star spangled banner' (which measures a huge 36 x 30 ft) some of Abraham Lincoln's personal effects and much more besides.

Upon leaving the museum we found that the rain had followed us to Washington so we just dashed to the nearest bar - although on entering we discovered that smoking in bars is still legal in Washington so then we dashed to the nearest affordable looking restaurant instead.