The track number lit up on the board at about 5:30am and we started boarding at 5:50am. The train was extremely comfortable. The seats were huge. We were annoyed that we didn’t bring our phone chargers and converters, as there were power points but no USB ports. There was not much to see on the way down as it was snowing and dark so we all slept most of the way. We flew through Philly and Baltimore arriving in DC at 9:30am. Union station is absolutely beautiful and worth looking around at the beautiful architecture. 

First stop was Capitol hill. Sadly the dome was covered in scaffolding so we pressed on the National Archives where we took in the highlights of the first documents like Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. 

We then moved on down to the Smithsonian museum strips. We were exhausted already, due to the cold. It is a huge amount of walking between each place. Doable but huge. 

First stop was the Air and Space museum. Hubby was way more excited about this than me but I did appreciate all the full size aeroplanes, rockets, space stuff. It was HUGE! 

By this time it was 12pm and with a Macca's at the end of this museum we stopped for a cheap lunch.

With no time to lose we continued on to the American History Museum where we again took in the highlights of the American Stories room with Kermit, Dorothy’s shoes, CP30 and Mohammad Ali’s gloves just to name a few. 

We then raced on to see the white house before fading light as it was winter and the light starts to go at around 5pm. 

The white house was a long, long way to walk and then across a large ugly park. 

We took our obligatory photos, then hubby and older daughter left for the Spy Museum and myself and younger daughter walked to the Holocaust Museum. 

Holocaust museum

After comparing stories, both museums were awesome. The Holocaust Museum was incredible with unbelievable artefacts from many concentration camps. It told the whole story of Hitler way before the war and after. Very moving but interesting too.

Holocaust Museum

The Spy museum ranged from artefacts from famous spy movies to real spy gadgets.

Spy Museum

With all the museums closing at 5:30p.m. we all met at the Washington Memorial. It was a freezing 2 degrees by now but we pressed on to the Lincoln Memorial.


It was a very long 500m to see Lincoln but well worth it. He is huge and very life like. The stairs were a killer by this time but we struggled up took some great family selfie photos and said a few prayers that we would make it back to Union Station.

We could have taken a taxi or Uber back to the station but decided to walk back. We couldn't feel our legs anyway! It was very dark by 7pm but we felt safe, with a number of locals going home from work. It took about 40 minutes to walk from Lincoln to Union. Stunning walk lit up by street lights.
23km round trip later we arrived at Union Station at 7pm. We ate dinner in the food court and boarded in a very efficient manner in even bigger seats this time! We all slept all the way back to Manhattan arriving at Penn station at 11:30pm. We trudged home to 40th not feeling quite as safe this time. Lots of odd bods on the streets at this time of night and I was glad we had a male with our group this time. We finally collapsed into bed at 12:30pm. What an amazing killer of a day!