Pandamania In Washington DC

I woke up in Washington DC this morning. The second trip here this week. It was again going to be a scorcher of a day - mid 30s C (90+ F) so I left the hotel at 9am to try and avoid the hottest part of the day. The trouble is, I always find so much that interests me that I always stay out longer than expected!

I wandered around the area north and west of DuPont Circle. There were 3 or 4 geocaches I was interested in finding. The first one I couldn't find, but I did see this lovely panda there, part of a public art exhibit from 2004. These pandas (150 of them!) were all over Washington, painted by different artists and this one is one of only a few remaining after they were eventually auctioned off for charity.

This area of DC, known as Kalorama, is full of huge mansions, many of them housing embassies from around the world - 177 of them, in fact!  Many of them are on a stretch of Massachusetts Avenue, known as Embassy Row. The architecture around here is beautiful. One house I stopped at was the Woodrow Wilson house, now a museum (bottom right picture). I found my geocache there and made a mental note to visit inside another time! This US president from the period of WW1 is the only president to have made his permanent home in the city at the end of his presidency. 

After a pleasant walk around this area, finding a couple more geocaches, including one at the Mahatma Gandhi statue, I ended up at DuPont Circle where I caught the tail end of their Sunday Farmers Market. I loved the one stall I saw with nothing but different varieties and colours of tomatoes, some of which looked quite grotesque!  I bet they were delicious, though!  

By this time it was almost unbearably hot and sticky. I was happy to finally make it back to my hotel room and enjoy some air conditioning for the rest of the afternoon, before heading back to the airport this evening.