Cherry Blossom Festival - Washington DC

 

Route from Harrisburg to Washington DC:

US - 15 S I - 270 S

 

It was in 1912 when the about 3000 Cherry (Sakura) trees were gifted to the US by Japan. These cherry trees signify the coming of spring as they burst into a colorful bloom of pink and white. Its during this time that the Cherry Blossom festival is held in Washington DC for about 3 weeks. When I saw the pictures of the beautiful pink and white flowers on the Internet, I wanted to go see it myself. That's when we decided to drive to DC last Saturday (03/28/08).

You need to consider a few things before you plan your trip for the Cherry Blossom. First and foremost, these Cherry trees have a period of peak bloom. This period is predicted by the US National Park Service Officials and the dates can be obtained from their website or by calling their office.

planyourvisit - national-cherry-blossom-page

Second important thing is to know about the location of the Cherry Blossom trees. The Cherry Tree map can be found from the official site of Cherry Blossom festival. Cherry Blossom Festival

For people driving to DC another thing to look out for is the parking information. Generally parking areas are available very near to the cherry Blossom area. Also on weekends all street parking in DC is free. The 42 metro stations of DC also provide free parking facility so one can actually drive up to a metro station and then take the metro to roam around in DC.

We had another mission other than seeing the Cherry Blossoms and that was taking the tour of the Washington Monument. I had been to DC a couple of times but never had a chance to see the Washington monument from the inside. The Washington Monument is free but you need tickets to go inside. The tickets are available online as well at the ticket counter located on the base of the monument on the 15th street which opens at 8:30am to give away the tickets on a first come first serve basis. However people line up as early as 7:30am. An individual gets a maximum of 6 tickets.

We decided to take this tour on this visit. First we checked online and to our shock found that the earliest tickets were available for the month of May, which means one needs to book about two months in advance. So the only option available to us was to stand in the line, for tickets, as early as possible. That Saturday I woke up at 3:30am to get ready for our trip. Me and my husband, we were ready by 4:30am. With our sandwiches in hand we started our drive from Harrisburg. What we planned was to drive up to Rossyln (Virginia), park at Rossyln station and take the metro to DC. Our drive took us about 2 hours. We were at Rossyln around 7:10am. After parking we took the metro to the Smithsonian station, from where we walked up to the Washington Monument ticket kiosk. We were there at the right time. The line ahead of us had about 100 odd people. We met a father daughter duo who had come here for the second consecutive time as the day before the tickets finished with 50 of them left in the line. According to him our position was good and so we had full hopes of getting the tickets. We stood there for one and half hours with the wind blowing hard on our backs. The sun shone but had little effect against the might cold wind. It was so cold that the line outside the ladies restroom was giving competition to the ticket line. Finally the kiosk opened at 8:30am and the line started moving. My husband's friend joined us too. We were lucky enough to get the 9:00am tickets. We quickly hurried to the monument and after a complete search of all our things we were allowed to move in. Please keep in mind no eatables etc are allowed inside the monument. Because of this I did not carry any food with us and I was kind of starved a little. also there is no coffee shop or anything near the monument. The one that is there opens late around 9am and has just the very basic things. As you enter the monument the George Washington picture welcomes you.

The monument is 500ft tall and you are asked to take the elevator to the top most floor. Just opposite the elevator is a statue of George Washington.

 

On the top floor are windows on all four directions (North, South, East and West). These windows give a beautiful panoramic view of the outside. In fact I liked the white house better from the top than from outside. The other sides give the beautiful view of the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial, the Pentagon and the air strip with aircrafts landing and taking off.

 

The Jefferson memorial, the tidal basin and the Potomac river lined up by the Cherry trees look beautiful from the top.

 

We had a great time there. during this tour. On the 490ft level there is a small exhibit related to the history of the monument. Then while going down to the zero level you get to see some of the stones inside the monument that have been gifted by various states. Well the experience was wonderful. Once we came out we straight away headed to the food court at the Old Post Office building because all three of us were hungry. The food court is nice with a variety of food stalls. There is an Indian outlet called vegetarian delight. I had a gigantic sized samosa and my husband tried  a Greek wrap. We also had chocolate rocky road cookie and a macadamia nut cookie. These are sold by weight here. Oh we loved the cookies. Just then I got a call from my brother, who was supposed to join us. So we made our way towards the Natural History Museum to pick him up.

Next all four of us headed towards the tidal basin for the Cherry Blossom festival. On the way, outside the Washington Monument, the kite flying festival had begun.  The variety of kites added color to the sky. there were all kinds of kites, big ones, small ones, cute ones etc. As we moved towards the tidal basin we could see the sea of pink and white. The Cherry trees are planted around the Jefferson Memorial - all around the tidal basin and the Potomac river area. The moment we were there the photo session started with me wanting my picture everywhere. There are total 12 varieties of Cherry trees with the flower color ranging from white, to light pink, to darker shades of pink. Some are also a bit reddish in color.

 

The view of the basin surrounded by the blossoms is amazing.  Over there they had the Cherry Blossom Welcome center which provided all the information to the visitors. They also had stalls selling Japanese cuisine and Japanese beer which probably was sold out in an hour or so. We decided to go for paddle boating in the basin. The line was long but we made it after waiting for 30-40 min. We took one 4 seater boat with me and my husband paddling. It was fun. The weather had become nice by then so we enjoyed the boating all the more. While on the boat we had a tough time taking a picture of all four of us with the Washington monument in the backdrop.

There is a small tulip library just near the tidal basin. There were some very colorful tulips in bloom and others were yet to come to life.

At the Jefferson Memorial some public performances were going on. We decided to skip that and go see the US Botanical Garden.

 

 

 

 

The garden is located near the Capitol at the Independence avenue and 1st street.

 

We took a walk to the Botanical garden. An orchid exhibit was going on at that time so we had the pleasure of seeing all kinds of orchids. They were simply beautiful.

 

After taking the tour of the garden we headed to Dupont Circle area for lunch. The restaurant that we chose was Zorbas Cafe.. a Greek eatery. The food was good. I tried the Zorba's Vegetarian Plate which had the Spanakopitta (phillo dough patty filled with spinach. eggs etc), fasolia (a long bean preparation), pitta bread and falafel (chick pea patties), Greek salad (feta cheese is good), two dolmathes (grape leaves stuffed with rice), hommus and tzatziki (yogurt cucumber dressing).Other dishes that we tried were Souvlaki (chicken skewers dish) and Keftethes (kefte Kebab) (meat balls served with rice). There are lots of eateries around the Dupont Circle area. Another place having good restaurants is Georgetown area. You can find lots of Indian restaurants, in addition to others, in both these areas.

Our visual senses satiated with the sight of the Cherry Blossoms and our stomachs full it was time to say goodbye. We took a metro from Dupont Circle to the Metro Center. From there my brother and my husband's friend headed to College park (Maryland) and we took a metro to Rossyln. From Rossyln we started our drive back home, halting in Maryland to take  a break. We both were a bit sleepy so the break was needed. We got back home in two and half hours.