DC Day Tripping: Cherry Blossom Festival

Spring is here!

Every year, for a period of about two weeks, millions of tourists from all over the world flock down to the DC area to watch the annual cherry blossom festival. They have been in DC since 1912, when Japan sent more than 3,000 cherry trees as a symbol of friendship. DC residents quickly fell in love with the pink and white blossoms, and so did the tourists.

Photographers love taking pictures of the cherry blossoms with the monuments in the background. Of course, I joined right in. This is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial -- more about that later.

Armed with a podcast from the Washington Post, with fun facts about the blossoms, we started our tour of the tidal basin. The plan was to go out on the water with a paddle boat, but because of the fierce winds they weren't letting people on the water initially.

Our first stop: the tulip library! Although planted by the National Park Service, the tulips (more than a 100 different varieties) are imported from the Netherlands. Unfortunately, it was too early for most of the tulips to bloom, but apparently it's quite nice when you get there at the right time.

Pretty in pink!

Another DC landmark; Washington Monument, also known as the obelisk.

Our tour led us part the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (here pictured with his dog Fala), where somehow I'd never been!

The FDR Memorial is one of the largest in the area and quite enjoyable to walk through with all its waterfalls.

The memorial is dvided in 5 different rooms, that follow the timeline of FDR's presidency. I believe this wall sculpture shows his inauguration.

This sculpture depicts people waiting in line for bread during the Great Depression. Once sworn into office, FDR quickly set to work to boost the economy and create jobs with a now famous program known as the New Deal.

Time to see some more cherry blossoms. I love the reflection of the blossoms in the puddle!

A beautiful overview of the trees near the Jefferson Memorial.

Another memorial I'd never visited before: the George Mason Memorial. It's nice, but a bit of a let down after the grandeur of the FDR Memorial.

Another angle.

Inside of the Jefferson Memorial.

Here you can clearly see some of the neo-classical architecture that's prevalent in DC.

After completing our loop around the tidal basin, we hop on the free shuttle around East Potomac Park. We'd plan to get off at a couple of the stops, walk around, take some pictures, then get back on, but after walking all day on my banged up knee, it's really nice to sit and enjoy the scenery and we end up riding all the way to the second last stop. The picture above was taken in the Park, where trees line both sides of the street.

This is what they look like up close.

Rather than wait half an hour for the next bus we decide to walk back to the mall and I ended up taking this picture of the Washington Monument across the Washington Channel. Not an angle you see very often.

For dinner we head to Chef Geoff's, a restaurant that came highly recommended on a Dutch forum I belong to. The restaurant is located on Freedom Plaza, with the beautiful statue of Brigadier Casimir Pulaski. It's a favorite hang out for local skaters ... if you have a few minutes to spare it's nice to sit and watch them do their tricks.

Anyway, dinner was great! Our favorite were the Buffalo mozarella risoto balls! Hmm so good ... I could've eaten 10 of them.

At night the National Park Service holds free lantern walks among the cherry blossoms and I'd really been looking forward to it. We almost joined a tour during the afternoon, but decided it would be too much to do both ... well, after walking all day anyway my knee was just done, plus it was getting chilly, so we decided to call it a day.