AMERICA - TWO CITIES

We made one major visit to New York a few years back during which I DROVE round Manhattan from the Lincoln Tunnel to the Battery from where we could see Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty. Parking was very pricy but we saw the sights and took some photographs. The year was 1993 and we stopped outside the World Trade Centre to see the surrounding area... We also saw the huge bronze bull in Wall Street. Furthermore I drove the length of Broadway, avoiding the Yellow Cabs...It was quite an experience. It was only a few days later that we heard on the car radio of the explosion in the WTC basement !! We like Washington DC, having used it as our base on numerous occasions. From here we can head west, north or south and find so many places of interest.. North west are the major Civil War Battlefields, including Mannassas, Antietam and Gettysburg..South is Virginia with Richmond, Fredericksburg and Vicksburg..Even further south are the Carolinas with Fort Sumter where the war started.. South west is Appomattox where the war ended.. I have made separate references to our Civil War visits so this section will be about Washington itself with the White House, Capitol, Lincoln Memorial and Arlington. Our first visit was in winter when one day on our way back to Boston, we had driven up the coast from New York and decided to stay two days in the Nations Capital. We arrived in the outer city in glorious sunshine but noticed a brief flurry of large flakes of snow......Within an hour, we could hardly see through the windscreen and drove gingerly to a hotel to sit out the blizzard. The whole area of Washington was covered in a deep layer of snow and we were glad to get in doors in a warm room with a slap-up evening meal.. Looking out of the window Washington looked very "Arctic" and we stayed in and watched on TV the problems caused by this downfall. Morning came and we had our usual American Breakfast with all the trimmings.. The hotel was a good base for our two days in Washington and we were surprised at how quickly the roads were cleared of snow and we were able to see quite a lot of the City without getting out of the car ! However, it was essential to park the car and catch a tram to tour the rest of the sights...I took photographs and video and was pleased with the results..You do not see many pictures of Washington after a heavy snow storm. One of the highlights was visiting the White House. Unfortunately, because of the bad turn in the weather one or two places remained shut..We would have to return some years later to see the rest...We did see Arlington in the snow and it was very moving... We noticed how the "tramps" kept warm by lying on the subway air vents.. I was able to visit the Smithsonium and the Space and Aviation Museums and purchase a number of books. There is so much to see and we really did not see all we wanted to see before heading out for Boston. It gave us a reason to fly into Washington Dulles next time we crossed the "pond" so that we could overlap what we had seen with more that we had looked up on the internet...I use the Whitehouse site and Hillary Clintons site both of which have considerable local information for the Two Cities.... RETURN