7.08.2012 – 7.08.2012  33 °C

Early start this morning as we used up the remainder of our bus pass by going out to see the Arlington cemetery and the Pentagon. None of us were actually that interested in seeing the Arlington cemetery… dead people don’t really interest any of us… but we were keen to see the other side of the river.

We took the bridge nearest to the Lincoln Memorial. The bridge is flanked by these huge gold leaf statues, that were a gift from Italy.. absolutely gorgeous! At the end of the road (that leads from the bridge and the statues) is the Arlington Cemetery. Some of America’s most famous people are buried in this cemetery, most notably JFK. All soldiers who die in active duty also have the option to be interred in Arlington as well as any soldier who has received a medal of honour, purple heart etc.

From what I could tell from the bus (nope I didn’t get off to have a close up look) all of the surrounding paddocks were filled with white marble tombstones. Sadly, a funeral was taking place whilst we were there… Is it just me or is it a little macabre to have a tourist attraction that is actually the home of thousands of dead? Apparently at the rate the US military is filling Arlington the entire cemetery will be filled by 2020….

The bus then took us around the corner to see the Pentagon… Hmm.. Also can’t say much about this building because unsurprisingly it is off limits to us mere civilians. It is very big, made of grey coloured stone, is in a pentagon shape and has a huge car park adorning one side! Yep not very photogenic is the Pentagon!!! I think the interesting thing is the height of the building.. probably only a few stories high so therefore how many stories deep does the building go???? Judging by the size of the car park and the number of cars parked inside, I would guess a lot of people work in this building…

The bus then returned back to the DC side of the Potomac and started on its trek around other sites of the city. I wasn’t interested in seeing Linc again (nor any of the other buildings on the mall) so exited the bus and headed down Pennsylvania Ave for the National Art Gallery. (M&D decided to head to see the Library of Congress so I didn’t catch up with them til dinner time).

I had a wonderful afternoon just wandering at will thru the Nat Art Gallery. It is in two parts, the west gallery is full of the old masters and the east gallery is “filled” with modern art. I put filled, in quotation marks, because it is really quite an empty space! There is this huge building that is filled with light and is largely empty of anything but air!! Don’t get me wrong there are some art works hanging on the walls but there is a lot of vacant space! What’s more annoying is not only is the building largely empty but I found it really difficult to navigate… I’m trying to find where the art work is hung and spent a good ten minutes walking down dead end corridors and up elevators that go “no where”… Strange all around…

The passageway between the Old and the New is pretty special.. It’s a travelator that passes thru a corridor of white LED lights.. it feels like you hit warp speed and are zooming thru outer space.. I loved it!! At the other end was the obligatory gift shop before you get into the old part of the gallery itself.

The old gallery is filled with works from around the globe and I was very pleasantly surprised to find a Da Vinci amongst the collection. This one was good but wasn’t a pinch on the Madonna I saw in the Alte in Munich. Actually this one is a Madonna cross with the Mona Lisa, she even had the “eyes that follow you” just like the Mona Lisa does!! Even better, no-one was in the gallery when I was looking so I could spend a good amount of time soaking up Da Vinci’s handiwork.. (NB for others.. if you want to see a Da Vinci skip the Mona Lisa—cause you can’t get very close to it anyhow—and find one of his 13 others that are in galleries throughout the world.. at least you’ll be able to appreciate his works up close)

The Nat Art Gallery also had some other fabulous works.. a few Van Gogh’s, Monet’s, Rembrandt’s, Botticelli, Raphael’s… it’s one of those galleries where you name the artist and I’m pretty confident you’ll find at least one of their works! Interesting story about one of the Van Gogh’s.. it was actually donated to the gallery by a wealthy benefactor! Can you imagine having the cash to just “donate” a priceless piece of art to a gallery… I would die to have a Van Gogh and certainly wouldn’t be letting it go anytime!!

My feet finally got the best of me and I had to bail after a couple of hours of gazing at beauty. We headed out to dinner back at our favourite Thai restaurant for some more yumminess… Red curry with beef for me and D and some Satay for M! Our last night in DC and we ended it with a late night walk around the monuments (gosh they are beautiful lit up)—off tomorrow to finish the last part of our trip back to the South!!!

Song of the Day– Lionel Ritchie, All Night Long