Washington, D.C.

The 36 outer columns stand for the states in the Union when Lincoln died. His Gettysburg Address and second inaugural are carved inside, and the step where Martin Luther King stood in 1963 is inscribed. It is lit all night and never closes.

The Wrights' 1903 Flyer and Columbia, the Apollo 11 command module, share one building, and entry is free. The shuttle Discovery and the SR-71 spy plane are not here but at the annex by Dulles Airport, a separate half-day trip by car or bus.

Tours start at the underground visitor centre on the east side and are free, but without a reservation you get in only if same-day places remain. The white dome is painted cast iron, raised during the Civil War. The chamber galleries need a separate pass.

The African elephant in the rotunda is everyone's meeting point. In the 2nd-floor gem hall the Hope Diamond, a blue stone of over 45 carats, turns slowly on a rotating stand. Entry is free, and on weekend afternoons people stand several deep around it.

After British troops burned the Capitol and its books in 1814, Jefferson sold over 6,000 of his own volumes the next year to restart it. The domed Main Reading Room in the Jefferson Building is viewed through an upper window; going in takes a reader card.

About 1/3 of the way up, the stone changes colour. Money ran out around the Civil War, work stopped for over 20 years, and the rest used marble from another quarry. Tickets to the top are free but must be reserved online, with a small booking fee.

It lies across the Potomac in Virginia, on the Metro Blue Line. At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier the guard changes every 30 minutes from April to September and on the hour from October to March. Kennedy's eternal flame is partway up the slope nearby.

It began in 1912 with 3,000 cherry trees from the mayor of Tokyo, and a few originals still stand by the water. Peak bloom usually falls in late March or early April, forecast ahead by the Park Service. On blossom weekends, come at dawn to walk the shore.

Founded in 1751 as a tobacco port, it is older than the capital around it. South of M Street runs the C&O Canal, whose old mule towpath is now a level walk. The steep stone stairs from The Exorcist link M Street to Prospect Street.

Ginevra de' Benci in the West Building is the only Leonardo painting in the Americas. I. M. Pei designed the East Building, opened in 1978, and an underground passage links the two. In winter the fountain in the sculpture garden becomes a skating rink.

The Smithsonian museum that opened in 2016, its bronze-toned lattice widening upward in tiers like a crown. The history galleries begin deep underground with the slave trade and climb a ramp towards the present. Admission is free.

Being Smithsonian, it charges nothing at the gate. The panda yard belongs to Bao Li and Qing Bao, sent over from China in autumn 2024. The path runs downhill from the Connecticut Avenue gate towards the creek valley, which means an uphill walk on the way out.

A Gothic cathedral whose first stone went down in 1907 and which was finished only in 1990. High on the northwest tower sits a Darth Vader grotesque chosen in a children's competition in the 1980s, so people with binoculars gather below that tower.

A black granite wall raised in 1982 to a design by Maya Lin, then a twenty-one-year-old student. Names run in order of the date of death, not alphabetically. Volunteers at the wall hand out paper and pencils for taking a rubbing of a name.

19 steel soldiers in ponchos walk through low shrubs; with their reflections in the granite wall beside them they number 38. The Wall of Remembrance added in 2022 carries the names of the American fallen and of Korean KATUSA soldiers too.

The Air and Space Museum's second site, in Chantilly, Virginia, beside Dulles Airport. Its vast hangar holds the Space Shuttle Discovery and an SR-71 spy plane. Admission is free, but the car park charges a fee.

George Washington's plantation house lies on the Potomac, less than an hour by car downriver from town. He and Martha lie in a tomb on the slope below. Entry to the mansion itself goes by the time printed on your ticket.

Capitol Hill's public market, running since 1873. The indoor South Hall holds butchers and cheese counters, and at weekends craft and antique stalls spread over the yard outside and across the street. The indoor hall is shut on Mondays.

In the domed Rotunda the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights lie side by side in glass cases. The light is kept low so the ink will not fade, and your eyes need a moment to adjust before the script is legible. Entry is free.