L'Enfant had a vision of putting the capitol on a hill and from there you could see miles in all directions. He also had envisioned the whole surrounding area as an 11 square mile town. This idea seems reasonable to us now days, however, back in the 1790s the largest city in the world was London that was only 8 square miles. Philadelphia was the biggest city in all of American and only reached 1 square mile. Once you grasp the concept of that era in time, you might understand why this vision was so unbelievable. And today we not only traveled through years of history but also miles of ground on foot, that L'Enfant designed.
We had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with Steve Livengood as he gave us a tour of the capitol building and some wonderful history lesson. We walked the street that the British marched as they entered the city and burned the capitol. Then we walked the halls of the capitol and view the galleys of both the House and the Senate. Every plaque, every wing, every statue had a story behind it. And tomorrow.... we'd be happy to write a few of them down for you, but it's getting late, so let me wrap it up by giving you a VERY brief overview of our days events. After the tour of the capitol, we passed the library of congress, caught the metro in the extremely busy Union Station, viewed the north lawn of the gorgeous white house, circled to the south lawn, sauntered to the World War II memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial, strolled to the Lincoln Memorial, and finally dragged our weary feet back to the hotel.
PS: We took around 300 pictures today, we just haven't got them posted. We will select a few to add to our blog tomorrow. For now, goodnight and sweet dreams!
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