Washington Monument

If I had to choose one word to describe Washington D.C. it would be monumental, no part more so than the aptly named Washington Monument.

It is a lot bigger than I thought it would be.  It's an iconic structure, and the tallest in Washington (by law, I believe).  It's almost 170 metres tall, which makes it very visible from around the city.   From the Lincoln Memorial, over a kilometre away...with the Capitol  in the distance...

From across the water at the Jefferson Memorial...

From the opposite side of the inlet of the Potomac River they call the Tidal Basin...

And from the Capitol...

It makes it easy to find for tourists - just look for the tallest thing you can see and head that way.

There is a lift inside that you can take up to an observation deck but unfortunately we couldn't get tickets.  Still we were able to walk right around it, touch it and bask in its magnificence.  There is a line some way up where you can see one kind of stone was used below and another above, invisible from a distance but quite clear close up.  This is because the thing was only half built then abandoned for about twenty years before being finished with slightly different marble.  It is surprising, today, that a monument dedicated to George Washington could be treated with such indifference (it wasn't the first time, either, more on that another day), but all such hesitation is gone and it is now one of the most popular attractions in the country.

The night we visited it was buzzing with tourists, and children were playing sports in the grass all around which gave it a very wholesome festival atmosphere.  As we departed to see what other monumental masonry we could find the Marine Corps Jazz Band started up (who knew there was such a thing - I guess their mission is to put the enemy off their marching pace) and that just added to the holiday feeling.  It wasn't buzzing quite so much when I passed it on other days.  Purely by chance we had visited it at probably the best time possible.

It is very impressive and all the more so because there is nothing around to rival it.  In New York everything is huge, and so you can't appreciate just how huge everything is.  In Washington there are huge buildings but they are laid out sparsely and everything feels much grander.

And the Washington Monument is the grandest of them all.