More than Memorials & Museums

Sun was out friday morning - what a different atmosphere! After a good breakfast (Eggs Benedict, which I love) with the PR Manager of the Fairmont Hotel in the creative Juniper Restaurant, we moved our luggage to another hotel for the last two nights. The Melrose was fortunately just a few steps up the street and completely different from the elegant, noble Fairmont: rather „boutiquey“, fancy and hip. After a friendly welcome we even were able to check into our large suite on the top floor (living room, office corner, bedroom) at 10 am already. Love it, makes life easier.

From there we took the „DC Circulator“ for a change - a bus circulating on different routes, which only costs $ 1, but is much slower than the subway because of traffic – to U Street Corridor (see pic above). We checked out this up-and-coming neighborhood with restaurants, cafés, bars and (some) shops and continued by foot to Adams Morgans (see pic), another culturally diverse neighborhood of Washington, which we actually even liked better than U Street. Perhaps one reason was, that we found a great second-hand bookstore („Idle Time“), another, that architecture is great in this area.

We took the Circulator back to Union Station (see pic) to check out the surroundings, but didn’t make it to the core of Capitol Hill anymore, because we had to be in Georgetown on time for a Washington DC Food Tour. After a pretty „walk-intensive“ day we were happy to get a chance to sit down and get something to eat. Actually, we got plenty to eat, at four different places, from charcuterie platter at J. Paul’s (see pic) to meatballs and pasta to crèpes and fantastic baking goods, though the duration of stays in the restaurants was a little too long for our taste.

The tour ended after 6 pm and we still walked up to Georgetown University - on pittoresque roads lined by beautiful homes owned by wealthy and famous people like the Kennedys or Secretary of State John Kerry – to take more pictures before trudging „home“. What a nice surprise was waiting for us in the room: a tray with different cheeses, honeys and fruit and a bottle of wine were waiting for us. A perfect end of a long, interesting, but exhausting day!