February Break Trip to Washington DC - Most 'Powerful' City in the World! Posted on: 5 March 2018 :: Photo Credits: Pradip, Alap ::
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Preface
These Americans really like to have long-weekends every month. Since there is no festival/holiday in February, they came up with the idea of ‘February Break’! To make the most of this 3-day break, I traveled to Washington DC.
P.S. Thank you Pradip for being an awesome host!
Day : 1
Location : Great Falls Park (Virginia)
It was a sunny day! Perfect weather for hiking. We had planned to spend the day in ‘Great Falls Park’, about 20 miles from Washington DC. Situated on the border of Maryland and Virginia, this park offered sweeping views of the Potomac River and its largest falls. Archaeology suggests that indigenous people used the area as fishing and seasonal hunting grounds. Early Americans saw the falls as an obstacle to trade and settlement. In 1785 they built the Patowmack Canal to make the river navigable for trade and settlement in lands to the west (source: National Park Service)
The Great Falls didn’t appear that ‘Great’, maybe because the river wasn’t at full capacity. But it was a refreshing sight indeed. The Potomac River begins as a small spring near Fairfax Stone, West Virginia. Like a giant funnel, it gathers water from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia as it travels 383 miles to the Chesapeake Bay. When it reaches Great Falls, the river narrows and drops 76 feet into a Canyon called Mather Gorge. Changing weather conditions in the river’s watershed affect the character of the river at Great Falls (source: Information Plaque at Great Falls)
The Washington Aqueduct Dam marks the northern boundary of the park. This dam is used to supply water to Washington DC and its suburbs.
The person at the information desk was very helpful. He gave us a description of various trails in the park. As per his recommendation, we chose to first walk on the North River trail towards a small dam and then hike along the Pataowmack Canal Trail for a couple of miles.
At the beginning of Patowmack Canal Trail, there were a series of potholes in the rocks. Apparently, these were formed during the Ice age, some 35000 years ago, when strong currents moved tons of sediments downriver. Rock obstacles in the river created tornado-like circular flows called vortexes. The power of the vortex picks up fine sediment and drills into the rock. The result is a pothole. [source: National Park Service]
We walked along the mile-long Mather Gorge, a gorge within the Potomac River Gorge bounded by steep rocky cliffs. The marked-trail ended in another mile and then the trail disappeared into the forest. It was already past 5 PM, so we decided to return to the visitor center. On our way back, we saw the remnants of ‘The Company House’. These rock walls mark the site of a house built in the late 1790’s by the Patowmack Company. Intended for the Canal Superintendent and his family, the house tool so long to build that only one of the superintendents ever lived in it. Later it was occupied by the canal lock-tenders. [source: Information Plaque near The Company House]
Day : 2
Location : Washington DC
Today, I had planned to roam around Washington DC city. My tour began with the Navy Memorial Plaza. In my previous trip to Washington DC, I had stumbled across a Navy band performance at the same spot. But today the area was empty. Just across the street, stood the ‘Archives of the United States of America’.
National Mall area was a 10minute walk from Navy Memorial Plaza. The National Mall is the most iconic area of Washington DC. It boasts of some of the famous museums, Washington Monument, Capitol Building and White House among other places of importance.
I walked around the White House complex to get a close look. Just outside the North Lawn, a protest was being staged against the gun-laws in the USA.
After enjoying the anti-Trump demonstrations for some time, I walked to the food court at ‘National Place’ for lunch. Everything in Washington DC is ‘National’! In the latter part of the afternoon, the weather grew gloomier and cold. So I decided to spend rest of the day in National Gallery of Art.
Even though I do not possess any sense of art, the National Art Gallery was interesting. They had a free mobile app called ‘Your Art’ to help naïve people explore the collections. It featured audio commentary about the description of some of the famous paintings in the Gallery, along with their history.
The most notable painting was Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Ginevra de’ Benci’. Some excerpts from the ‘Your App’ about this painting: The portrait is among his earliest experiments with the new medium of oil paint; some wrinkling of the surface shows he was still learning to control it. Still, the careful observation of nature and subtle three-dimensionality of Ginevra’s face point unmistakably to the new naturalism with which Leonardo would transform Renaissance painting. Ginevra is modeled with gradually deepening veils of smoky shadow-not by line, not by abrupt transitions of color or light.
Then there was a painting of Giuliano de’ Medici drawn by Sandro Botticelli. It reminded me of ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’ TV show, which presented the story of Medici family and Leonardo da Vinci. Giuliano Medici, the younger brother of Lorenzo, was brutally stabbed on Easter Day 1478 in the Cathedral. Some scholars, noting lowered eyelids, suggest this portrait was painted posthumously from a death mask. [source: Your App]
The art gallery had some works of Vincent van Gogh (including his self-portrait), another very famous and influential figures in the history of Modern art. Although his career was brief, lasting a mere 10 years Vincent van Gogh proved to be an exceptionally prolific and innovative artist. While he experimented with a variety of subjects-landscapes, still life, portraiture-it is his self-portraits that have come to define him as an artist. [source: Your App]
After the art gallery closed at 5 PM, I walked back to the US Capitol and spent some time around the ‘Capitol Reflecting Pool’, reflecting on the experiences of this trip (and life :) ).
