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US Airways Flights from Los Angeles (LAX) to Washington (IAD)
Orbitz is pleased to offer airline tickets on US Airways, which operates 5 regularly scheduled daily non-stop flights from Los Angeles (LAX) to Washington (IAD), departing between 8:00am and 10:20pm, and 3 additional non-stop flights, departing between 6:00am and 11:32pm on select days of the week. Generally, a movie is offered on this route. The average travel time from Los Angeles, CA to Washington, DC is 4 hours and 45 minutes.*
* Some flights valid for this market only.
During your Washington vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Bureau of Engraving & Printing
This is where they will literally show you the money. A staff of 2,600 works around the clock churning it out at the rate of about $700 million a day. Everyone's eyes pop as they walk past rooms overflowing with new greenbacks. But the money's not the whole story. The bureau prints many other products, including 25 billion postage stamps a year, presidential portraits, and White House invitations.Note: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing responds to Department of Homeland Security "Code Orange" warnings by halting its public tours. Call ahead to confirm that tours are on a normal schedule when you're here.Many people line up each day to get a peek at all the moola, so arrive early, especially during the peak tourist season.Consider securing VIP, also called "congressional" tour tickets from your senator or congressperson; VIP tours are offered Monday through Friday at 8:15 and 8:45am, with additional 4, 4:15, 4:30, and 5pm tours added in summer, and last about 45 minutes. Write or call at least 3 months in advance for tickets.Tickets for general public tours are required every day, and every person taking the tour must have a ticket. To obtain a ticket, go to the ticket booth on the 15th Street side of the building and show a valid photo ID. You will receive a ticket specifying a tour time for that same day, and be directed to the 14th Street entrance of the bureau; you are allowed as many as eight tickets per person. Booth hours are from 8am to 2pm, staying open until 7pm in summer.The 40-minute guided tour begins with a short introductory film. Then you'll see, through large windows, the processes that go into the making of paper money: the inking, stacking of bills, cutting, and examination for defects. Most printing here is done from engraved steel plates in a process known as intaglio, the hardest to counterfeit, because the slightest alteration will cause a noticeable change in the portrait in use. Additional exhibits include bills no longer in use, counterfeit money, and a $100,000 bill designed for official transactions (since 1969, the largest denomination printed for the general public is $100).After you finish the tour, allow time to explore the Visitor Center, open from 8:30am to 3pm (until 7:30pm in summer), where exhibits include informative videos, money-related electronic games, and a display of $1 million. Here, too, you can buy gifts ranging from bags of shredded money -- no, you can't tape it back together -- to copies of documents such as the Gettysburg Address.
The White House
It's amazing when you think about it: This house has served as a residence, office, reception site, and world embassy for every U.S. president since John Adams. The White House is the only private residence of a head of state that has opened its doors to the public for tours, free of charge. It was Thomas Jefferson who started this practice, which is stopped only during wartime. Our war on terrorism caused the administration in 2002 to close the White House for public tours for about 2 years. Thankfully, the White House is once again open for public tours, though not walkup tours. See the box, "How to Arrange a White House Tour," below.An Act of Congress in 1790 established the city, now known as Washington, District of Columbia, as the seat of the federal government. George Washington and city planner Pierre L'Enfant chose the site for the White House (or "President's House," as it was called before whitewashing brought the name "White House" into use) and staged a contest to find a builder. Although Washington picked the winner -- Irishman James Hoban -- he was the only president never to live in the White House. The structure took 8 years to build, starting in 1792, when its cornerstone was laid, and its facade is made of the same stone as that used to construct the Capitol. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British set fire to the White House, gutting the interior; the exterior managed to endure only because a rainstorm extinguished the fire. What you see today is Hoban's basic creation: a building modeled after an Irish country house (in fact, Hoban had in mind the house of the Duke of Leinster in Dublin).Alterations over the years have incorporated the South Portico in 1824, the North Portico in 1829, and electricity in 1891, during Benjamin Harrison's presidency. In 1902, repairs and refurnishings of the White House cost nearly $500,000. No other great change took place until Harry Truman's presidency, when the interior was completely renovated, after the leg of Margaret Truman's piano cut through the dining room ceiling. The Trumans lived at Blair House across the street for nearly 4 years while the White House interior was shored up with steel girders and concrete. It's as solid as Gibraltar now.In 1961, Jacqueline Kennedy formed a Fine Arts Committee to help restore the famous rooms to their original grandeur, ensuring treatment of the White House as a museum of American history and decorative arts. "It just seemed to me such a shame when we came here to find hardly anything of the past in the house, hardly anything before 1902," Mrs. Kennedy observed. Presidents through the years have put their own stamp on the White House, the most recent example being President Bush's addition of the T-ball field to the South Lawn.Highlights of the tour include the Gold-and-White East Room, the scene of presidential receptions, weddings (Lynda Bird Johnson, for one), and other dazzling events. This is where the president entertains visiting heads of state and the place where seven of the eight presidents who died in office (all but Garfield) laid in state. It was also where Nixon resigned. The room's early-18th-century style was adopted during the Theodore Roosevelt renovation of 1902; it has parquet Fontainebleau oak floors and white-painted wood walls with fluted pilasters and classical relief inserts. Note the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington that Dolley Madison saved from the British torch during the War of 1812. The portrait is the only object to have remained continuously in the White House since 1800 (except during times of reconstruction).You'll visit the Green Room, which was Thomas Jefferson's dining room but today is used as a sitting room. Mrs. Kennedy chose the green watered-silk-fabric wall covering. In the Oval Blue Room, decorated in the French Empire style chosen by James Monroe in 1817, presidents and first ladies have officially received guests since the Jefferson administration. It was, however, Van Buren's decor that began the "blue room" tradition. The walls, on which hang portraits of five presidents (including Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Thomas Jefferson and G. P. A. Healy's of Tyler), are covered in reproductions of early-19th-century French and American wallpaper. Grover Cleveland, the only president to wed in the White House, was married in the Blue Room. This room was also where the Reagans greeted the 52 Americans liberated after being held hostage in Iran for 444 days, and every year it's the setting for the White House Christmas tree.The Red Room, whose satin-covered walls and Empire furnishings are red, is used as a reception room, usually for afternoon teas. Several portraits of past presidents and a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Dolley Madison hang here. Dolley Madison used the Red Room for her famous Wednesday-night receptions.From the Red Room, you enter the State Dining Room. Modeled after late-18th-century neoclassical English houses, this room is a superb setting for state dinners and luncheons. Below G. P. A. Healy's portrait of Lincoln is an inscription written by John Adams on his second night in the White House (FDR had it carved into the mantel): "I Pray Heaven to Bestow The Best of Blessings on THIS HOUSE and on All that shall here-after Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under this Roof."Note: Even if you have successfully reserved a White House tour for your group, you should still call tel. 202/456-7041 before setting out in the morning; in case the White House is closed on short notice because of unforeseen events. If this should happen to you, you should make a point of walking by the White House anyway, since its exterior is still pretty awesome. Stroll past it on Pennsylvania Avenue, down 15th Street past the Treasury Building, and along the backside and South Lawn, on E Street.
International Spy Museum
After several visits to the Spy Museum, my 12-year-old and I like to test each other's powers of observation. We'll be standing in a store or other public place and look around for signs of "hostile surveillance, security systems, and unexpected risk or unlucky breaks." We're putting into practice some tips we picked up at the museum, in a section called "Tricks of the Trade," where interactive monitors teach you what to look for, when it comes to suspicious activity. This tradecraft area is the first you come to in the museum, after you've seen the 5-minute briefing film, and it's easy to spend a lot of time here. In addition to the surveillance games, the section displays trick equipment (such as a shoe transmitter used by Soviets as a listening device and a single-shot pistol disguised as a lipstick tube) and runs film in which spies talk about bugging devices and locks and picks. You can watch a video that shows individuals being made up for disguise, from start to finish, and you can crawl on your belly through ductwork in the ceiling overhead. (The conversations you hear are taped, not floating up from the room of tourists below.)Try to pace yourself, though, because there's still so much to see, and you can easily reach your limit before you get through the 68,000-square-foot museum. The next section covers the history of spying ("the second oldest profession") and tells about famous spymasters over time, from Moses; to Sun Tzu, the Chinese general, who wrote The Art of War in 400 B.C.; to George Washington, whose Revolutionary War letter of 1777 setting up a network of spies in New York, is on view. Learn about the use of codes and code-breaking in spying, with one room of the museum devoted to the Enigma cipher machine used by the Germans (whose "unbreakable" codes the Allied cryptanalysts succeeded in deciphering) in World War II. An actual Enigma machine is displayed, and interactive monitors allow you to simulate the experience of using an Enigma machine, while learning more about its invention and inventor.Much more follows: artifacts from all over (this is the largest collection of international espionage artifacts ever put on public display); a re-created tunnel beneath the divided city of Berlin during the Cold War; the intelligence-gathering stories of those behind enemy lines and of those involved in planning D-Day in World War II; an exhibit on escape and evasion techniques in wartime; the tales of spies of recent times, told by the CIA and FBI agents involved in identifying them; and a mockup of an intelligence agency's 21st century operations center. You exit the museum directly to its gift shop, which leads to the Spy City Café.While you may look with suspicion on everyone around you when you leave the museum, you can trust that what you've just learned at the museum is authoritative: The Spy Museum's executive director was with the CIA for 36 years and his advisory board includes two former CIA directors, two former CIA disguise chiefs, and a retired KGB general.The International Spy Museum has been immensely popular ever since its mid-2002 opening, which often translates into long lines for admission. Consider ordering advance tickets for next-day or future date tours through Ticketmaster (tel. 202/432-SEAT), which you can pick up at the Will Call desk inside the museum. You can also purchase advance tickets, including those for tours later in the day, at the box office.
Make your reservations for discount hotel rooms in the
Washington area, including:
Jurys Washington Hotel
This hotel gets high marks for convenience (it's located right on Dupont Circle), service, and comfort. Open since 2000, the hotel is favored by business groups especially, who like its reasonable rates. Each of the large rooms is furnished with two double beds with firm mattresses, an armoire with TV, a desk, a wet-bar alcove, and a tiny but attractive bathroom. Decor is Art Deco-ish, with lots of light-wood furniture. All guest rooms offer free, high-speed Internet access. Despite its prime location in a sometimes raucous neighborhood, the hotel's rooms are insulated from the noise. Rooms on higher floors offer the best views of the city and of Dupont Circle. An Irish management company owns this hotel (along with two other properties in Washington, D.C.), and the comfortable and attractive hotel pub, Biddy Mulligan's, proudly features a bar imported from the Emerald Isle. Its American restaurant, Dupont Grille, opened in spring 2003, and a welcome addition it is to the hotel and the neighborhood (see review, chapter 6). Check the hotel's website for guaranteed lowest rates.
Georgetown Inn
This hotel is in the thick of Georgetown. Most guests are here on business, but come Memorial Day weekend, the hotel is full of the proud parents of graduating Georgetown University students. (The hotel books up 2 years in advance for graduation weekend.)A million dollar renovation completed in 2004 refurbished the lobby, corridors, and guest rooms. Guest rooms now have "Heavenly Beds," new upholstery, and drapes. The hotel's general style remains European-handsome, heavy on the dark woods. Half of the rooms hold two double beds, although a couple of rooms have twin single beds, connecting with suites, helpful to families traveling with children. Ask for an "executive room" if you'd like a sitting area with pullout sofa, and extra conveniences like a reading lamp over the bed. Even better are the 10 one-bedroom suites, in which bedroom and large living room are separate. The bathrooms have only showers (some also have bidets), no tub.The Daily Grill has an outpost here, offering the same generous portions of American food served at its original D.C. location, at 1200 18th St. NW.Facilities: Restaurant (American); bar; access to an outdoor pool; exercise room, plus free access to nearby health club and spa; concierge; room service during restaurant hours; same-day laundry/dry cleaning; 4 rooms for those w/limited mobility, all with roll-in showers.
Phoenix Park Hotel
The Phoenix Park is one of a cluster of hotels across from Union Station and 2 blocks from the Capitol. It's distinguished by its popular and authentic Irish pub, The Dubliner, which attempts to set the tone for the entire property. Because of this well-worn, wood-paneled pub, which offers Irish fare, ale, and nightly entertainment, the hotel attracts numerous sons and daughters of Erin, stages a number of Ireland-related events in its Connemara marble-accented ballroom, and generally conveys an air of Irish hospitality. The rooms are attractive but rather cramped with furnishings. Reserve a "deluxe" room (about $30 more than a standard) to stay in a room with a view (Union Station, Smithsonian museums, or congressional buildings). Or book a one- or two-story suite, some of which have balconies, working fireplaces, and spiral staircases. The last major renovation was in 1997, when marble was installed in all the bathrooms; more recently, bathroom scales and heat lamps were added. Irish decorative accents include linens and bathrobes, artwork, toiletries, and carpeting. High-speed Internet access is currently available only in deluxe rooms.
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