Spring Vacation in Washington, DC

Of all of our family travel experiences, our recent trip to Washington, DC was the trip that had brains most constantly engaged. It was a journey into the the power of words and the risks and challenges that our Nation's heroes took to preserve and guarantee their vision. Of course our bodies got plenty of movement walking from museum to museum and climbing up and down the metro escalator. The timing was ripe for all us Our children 5, 9 and 11 were the perfect age for their introductory tour of this most fascinating and thought provoking city; I had not been since my own 8th grade school trip (and a couple of college protest marches) and for my husband, an Italian lawyer by trade/ new American citizen our week in Washington was important chapter in his own unique American experience.

We took the overnight train from Boston hours after spending hours cheering runners up heartbreak hill for the Boston Marathon. We rented an apartment using Vacation Rentals By Owner and found a cute apartment near the zoo. We landed at Union Station and hit the ground running. First stop was the Air and Space Museum, the most visited building on the planet. We spent all day roaming through the rich collections of exhibits. My personal favorite was the Frank and Wilbur Wright gallery in which we learn how two humble bicycle mechanics evolve into the world's first pilots. The children loved all the hands on exhibits, I caught up on some sleep at the IMAX show. From the Air and Space onto the Washington, Memorial, a fun place to run around and plan the details of the week ahead

As a child I would savor the pages of National Geographic as soon as it landed in our mailbox and was certainly the inspiration for my love of travel and photography, so a visit to its base in Washington was first on my list. The National Geographic Society museum is small but always has unique revolving exhibits, we were lucky to see one that had live frogs from around the world creatures . The museum is small but has great rotating exhibits. Here we also learned about our human footprint (one Sunday paper uses 500,000 trees) and saw sculptures made of garbage. We also learned about the Genographic Project, a five-year study using DNA as a study tool to map how humankind populated the planet.

On to the Library of Congress, considered one of the most beautiful buildings in Washington, we roamed its beautiful halls and fascinating exhibits including the an original Guttenberg Bible, an exhibit on Creating the United States that offered insights into how the nation’s founding documents were forged and the role that imagination and vision played in the unprecedented creative act of forming a self–governing country and an exhibit on Bob Hope whose voluminous joke collection was donated to the Library of Congress.

We spent the rest of a perfect spring afternoon to explore the memorials, starting with the Lincoln Memorial, then moving to the Vietnam, WW2 and Jefferson Memorial, each stop stirring many great questions about life, death and freedom. Reading the Gettysburg address and thinking of Martin Luther King's words spoken here is an empowering mental and emotional journey of how a powerful, passionate vision can ground and inspire each one of us to reach great heights.

Thursday was packed with eclectic learning starting with my son Lorenzo's first choice: The International Spy Museum. While I could have passed this descent into a Bond lovers fantasy, I found the museum's rich content, including exhibits about Renaissance spying fascinating. My 5 year old loved the James Bond Car and my daughter loved scrambling through the air ducts. The museum could better orientate its visitors, it starts out with all of the Spy paraphrenalia which bogs you down (and tires you out ) until you emerge to the broader Spy culture and history exhibits which were intriguing. Be prepared for kids to go crazy in the gift shop

Another museum on my list was the Native American Indian museum, a beautiful building that was designed to reflect the Native American sense of space the natural world. The museum was not jam packed with artifacts, instead there was a calming flow of presentations about a handful of Indian cultures in the Americas.

From Spys to Native American and finally the National Archives where we, and dozens of others jammed into a rotunda to see the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill or Rights. All faded but pretty special. The gift shop is excellent.

My favorite museum hands down was The Newseum, the world's most interactive museum, (that opened on April 11 ) that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second innovation and fun. It's a great museum to wrap up your visit to Washington for it brings history full circle demonstrates how our beliefs are challenged daily. One exhibit that blended famous film clips and the first amendment offered a huge learning opportunity to internalize our most precious right. Our kids even got to be filmed as live reporters. The Newseum features seven levels of galleries, theaters, retail spaces and visitor services. It offers a unique environment that takes museum goers behind the scenes to experience how and why news is made. "Visitors will come away with a better understanding of news and the important role it plays in all of our lives," said Newseum Executive Director and Senior Vice President Joe Urschel. "The new Newseum is educational, inspirational and a whole lot of fun." We spent the entire day here, aside from an hour to tour the Capitol.

By Saturday AM we were ready for an easy stroll through the Washington Zoo with friends who live in the area. Even though it was crowded, the kids enjoyed seeing the Pandas, elephants and rhinosaurus.

What a perfect family spring destination...we'll be back