Washington Walks backward into history
What can you do in two hours? Watch a movie, sure, or enjoy a fine dinner out (including appetizers and dessert). But what about exploring the fine city of Washington, DC, and getting some exercise while you’re at it?Washington Walks is a premier organization in the city which makes the process of getting out and about as painless as possible. Simply show up at the appropriate Metrorail station at the right time, pay in cash (15 per person and free for children 3 and under), and you’re ready to go. Over the next two hours, your horizons will be expanded, your feet will be strengthened, and your trip to DC made more complete.WW offers a variety of different tours. The “Georgetown” experience takes guests through the historical freedmen community Herring Hill, Victorian mansions, and even the steps from the film The Exorcist. “Memorials by Moonlight” does exactly as it promises, starting at 6:30 in the evening and touching on all the hits: the Roosevelt Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Korean and Vietnam War Memorials, Lincoln Memorial, and the World War II Memorial. The final stop–watching the moonlight play across the Reflecting Pool–is a beautiful, postcard-worthy sight that has to be experienced in person.”The Most Haunted Houses” is another night-walk, but this one is more likely to give you shiversand we don’t mean from the temperate DC nights. The stories of well-known personages like Henry Adams and Abraham Lincoln intertwine with lesser-known haunting, like Stephen Decatur’s. If you’d rather explore the glitz and glamour of years gone by, check out the “Embassy Row” tour, where industrial families prospered in the late 1880s only to lose everything by the Great Depression.No matter which tour you choose, you’re sure to walk away with a new understanding of DC. Now isn’t that well-worth your time?