Date                      Wednesday 15 May 2013 to Friday 17 May 2013

Back to work, or play depending on your point of view.  We flew into Washington Dulles and spent the ritual 90 minutes queuing to go through passport control and immigration before escaping with our bags to pick up a hire car. With the aid of our trusty Garmin SatNav we drove to Falls Church and the home of Sid and Rebecca Shaw who very kindly put us up and provided great hospitality during our stay in Washington.

After a very convivial evening on Wednesday, on Thursday morning Sid dropped us off at the local Metro station and we headed for the Capitol

where we took the excellent guided tour and exited through the Library of Congress via the tunnel that links the two.

Having viewed two of the greats we took the Metro downtown and had lunch before reporting for our pre-booked Segway tour.  Anyone familiar with my general lack of coordination will not be surprised by the fact that it took me rather longer than most to master the subtle art of not being thrown off and abandoned by this amazing piece of improbable technology.

With the assistance of an excellent guide communicating through radio earpieces and a sweeper at the rear of our 10 person convoy in 2½ hours we covered many of the principle sites – and I did not fall off.

We returned to Chez Shaw and after an early supper Sid and Rebecca drove us back into Washington to see some of the sites by night.

The Lincoln Memorial looked spectacular, outside

and in.

The statuary in the parks was subtely floodlite and very moving: