Smithsonian. Washington DC

Washington is a great city but what made it even better was The Smithsonian Institution. I knew there where loads of museums and places to visit here, but I only found out they where all free a couple of days before we arrived. This meant we didn't have to worry or work out which ones we could visit, it meant we could visit as many as we could squeeze in.

They recommend that you go to the Information Center at the Castle first, which we didn't do. I went there later on, on my own. There isn't much there but it is a nice building and nice gardens, and I guess a good place to start as there is so much to do and you can get some sort of plan.

The first museum we went to was the Air and Space Museum. We went to this one first because Willow wanted to meet Able the space monkey. She is so tiny we nearly missed her among everything else. I thought she looked a bit sad.





Outside the Air and Space Museum is 'The Voyage Exhibit', a journey through our solar system. Willow really liked this as it still had Pluto. “Poor Pluto, shouldn't have been sacked from being a planet”.

We didn't spend as much time as I would have liked in the American History Museum but Tweedy was very excited in because he got to meet Kermit.



The National Zoological Park is also part of the Smithsonian and just a short metro ride away from The Mall. It is a really nice Zoo though quite a few bits were closed when we went, getting ready for the 'season' to starts I guess. It was still very enjoyable, even more so than some of the others we have been to recently. The pandas were great, you could see them so easily. I had been disappointed last time I saw them at San Diego as you had to que and then just saw a glimpse. The main bit that was shut was the elephants, but we see them close up nearly everyday any way.





The Natural History Museum is full of all sorts of interesting things, so much so that we went there twice. We found lots of stuff from 'Night at the Museum' including the Giant Squid, dum dum (Easter Island Head) and T. Rex. A new Exhibit had only just opened, Human Origins and it was really interesting. The Hope diamond also lives here, and is said to be the largest diamond of it's kind. I guess I'm not a diamond kind of gal, because I really wasn't that impressed with it and Willow had expected way more than she saw.





The American Art Museum and The National Portrait Gallery is one of the only museums open after 5pm, so we went there one day after the others had shut. I wasn't sure if it would grab Willow the same was as some of the other museums as she usually prefers hand on interactive type places. I was pleasantly surprised at how much she liked it. So much so we went back a second time as Tweedy wasn't with us the first time and she wanted to show him some stuff she had liked. I enjoyed the Exhibition 'Framing the West'.





The Renwick Gallery didn't grab Willow as much, though she did like the fish made of toys. It was interesting to see how many toys had been used, some that I recognised from my childhood.

As well as the actual museums being great, most of them are housed in amazing buildings and gardens within walking distance of The National Mall. It amazes me and pleases me that all of this is free to the public.