The Monuments

We loved the Monuments, we spent a whole stifling hot evening treking around to each one, we were all amazed at their size and at the scale of the mall (where they are all situated).  

In the foreground is the WWII memorial, Lincoln monument in the background.

WWII memorial:

4068 gold stars, each one representing the lives of 100 soldiers.

Walking with the fam to the next monument, G & S: up to no good as usual. 

The Vietnam memorial:

The memorial looks black from afar, up close the granite reflects its viewers.  

The simplicity of this monument is so powerful.

Inside the Lincoln memorial:

This picture does not capture the massive scale of the statue.  

View from the Lincoln memorial down to the Washington monument.  The brown muck in the foreground is a huge reflecting pool which is currently under restoration.  

The whole layout of Washington DC reminded us of Paris, but this view was a dead ringer for the Grand Canal at Versailles.  See pic below for the comparison.

photo from here

Massive columns at the Lincoln memorial.

This is the Franklin D. Roosevelt memorial:

The most striking thing was the many engravings of his famous quotes.  Very moving.

Many fountains.  Apparently FDR had said that if a memorial were ever constructed in his honour that he would like it to be no bigger than his desk.  The designers clearly completely ignored this request as the memorial is spread over 7 acres.  

Our final destination was the Jefferson memorial.  We took a little break alongside another lake where we could see the White House, the Washington monument, the Washington cathedral (on a hill).  It was very beautiful albeit insanely humid and a bit buggy.  

The Jefferson was my favourite.  

You may notice that the man pictured below looks like a park ranger.  That's because he is, and indeed there are signs around the park indicating that park rangers offer free tours of the monuments.  Do they ever.  At the beginning of our own little tour, we came across this park ranger with a group of about 5 people.  The 5 were sitting down and he was pacing back and forth in front of them and telling them in great detail, and in a very loud voice all about the founding fathers.  The tourists all looked slightly overwhelmed and it was pretty entertaining.  Over three hours later, when we arrived at the Jefferson memorial, we found the same group once again seated in front of the park ranger who was still shout-talking his way through the annals of American history (he was in the middle of an anecdote about his visit to Germany in the 1960s when I passed) with his shirt now drenched in sweat.  Those poor poor tourists!!