Washington DC

Washington is an inland river city, and beach life plays no part in a stay. The Potomac and Anacostia are for looking at and paddling on, not for swimming. The nearest sand is on the Chesapeake Bay, about an hour east around Annapolis. The bay is warm in high summer, often above 26°C, but the beaches are small and brackish, and jellyfish can be a nuisance late in the season.

The proper Atlantic resorts on the Delaware and Maryland shore are about three hours away. That is a weekend away, not an afternoon out. In summer most visitors cool off in a hotel pool.

Washington eats well, with less of a cuisine of its own than a broad, well-funded restaurant scene shaped by diplomats, lobbyists and immigrant communities. The Ethiopian restaurants are the city's real speciality, clustered around Shaw and U Street. Salvadoran pupusas are everywhere in Columbia Heights and the suburbs. The one local dish is the half-smoke, a spicy sausage served with chili. Maryland blue crabs and Chesapeake oysters come into season in summer and autumn, and the fish market on the Southwest waterfront is one of the oldest in the country.

The Eastern Market on Capitol Hill and the Union Market food hall in NoMa are where to graze. The top end is serious, with tasting menus and ambitious modern American kitchens around Penn Quarter, Logan Circle and the waterfront. Downtown, near the offices, a lot of dining is steakhouses and polished business lunches that feel more corporate than characterful.

Few cities put this many major museums within walking distance of each other. The Smithsonian museums line the National Mall: Natural History, Air and Space, American History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with the Hirshhorn, the Freer and Sackler galleries and the Portrait Gallery close by. The National Gallery of Art adds a first-class collection of European and American painting. Nearly all of them are free, so you can drop in for an hour as easily as spend a day.

Around them stands the monumental city: the Capitol, the White House, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, the Washington Monument and the war memorials along the Reflecting Pool. The Library of Congress reading room and Arlington Cemetery are both moving to see. The historic fabric is younger and plainer. Georgetown's Federal-era brick streets and the rowhouses of Capitol Hill are handsome but quiet, and it is the museums and monuments that fill a week.

A huge population of young staffers, students and professionals keeps the bars busy, especially from Thursday to Saturday. The 14th Street and U Street corridor is the centre of it, with cocktail bars, rooftops and late dance spots. Adams Morgan is the rowdier late-night strip of cheap drinks and pizza by the slice. H Street has the dive bars, and the Navy Yard and the Wharf have riverside beer gardens. Dupont Circle has long been the heart of the LGBTQ+ scene.

At weekends bars stay open until around 2 or 3am, and a few large clubs bring in touring DJs. Early in the week it is noticeably quieter, and much of the drinking is after-work happy hours rather than late nights. It is a good night out, but not a reason to come.

Washington is greener than most capitals. Rock Creek Park cuts a long wooded valley through the city, with trails and a paved route for cyclists. The C&O Canal towpath runs out of Georgetown along the Potomac for hundreds of kilometres of flat walking and riding. Theodore Roosevelt Island and the Mount Vernon Trail along the Virginia bank are easy escapes. About half an hour upriver, Great Falls is where the Potomac pours through a rocky gorge, with cliff-top paths, rock climbing and serious whitewater kayaking.

Further out, the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah National Park are about an hour and a half to two hours away, for ridge hikes such as Old Rag and the scenic Skyline Drive. Kayaking and paddleboarding on the Potomac are popular. Spring brings the cherry blossom around the Tidal Basin and autumn colour fills the ridges. July and August are hot and sticky for anything strenuous.

The surrounding region is dense with American history. Old Town Alexandria, a cobbled colonial port, is a short Metro ride away. George Washington's estate at Mount Vernon sits above the Potomac a little further south. Baltimore is under an hour by train for its Inner Harbor, Fort McHenry and rowhouse neighbourhoods. Annapolis, the sailing town and home of the Naval Academy, is about an hour's drive.

The Civil War battlefields are the other big theme: Gettysburg, Antietam and the river town of Harpers Ferry are each about an hour or two out. Philadelphia, with Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, is about two hours by fast train and makes a full but worthwhile day. Virginia's wine country around Middleburg and the Hunt Country villages is an easy drive. Jefferson's Monticello and colonial Williamsburg are a stretch too far for a comfortable day.

Washington is one of the easier big cities to bring children to, largely because so much of the best is free and designed to teach. The dinosaur and gem halls at the Natural History museum, the rockets and planes at Air and Space and the hands-on corners of American History can fill several days. The National Zoo in Rock Creek Park, home of the giant pandas in many years, is free as well. The Mall itself is a huge lawn for running about, with a carousel in front of the Smithsonian Castle.

The Metro is easy with buggies thanks to lifts at every station, and the centre feels orderly. The drawbacks are the distances: the Mall is long, the walk between monuments is hot and exposed in summer, and there are no theme parks or beaches close by. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons.

Central Washington is flat, laid out on a grid crossed by broad avenues, and pleasant to walk, though the distances are bigger than they look. The Mall alone is about 3km from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. The Metro is clean, signposted by colour-coded lines and reaches most of what a visitor wants, including Arlington, Alexandria and Reagan National Airport. Every station has lifts, and you pay with a contactless card.

The gaps are real, though. Georgetown has no Metro station, so you take a bus or walk from Foggy Bottom. Trains run less often late at night and at weekends. Bike-share docks are everywhere and the riverside paths make cycling a good way to link the monuments. You do not need a car in the city, only for the battlefields and the countryside beyond.

Shopping is a pleasant sideline rather than a draw. Georgetown is the main street for it, with M Street and Wisconsin Avenue lined with chain fashion, independent boutiques and antique shops in old brick buildings. Downtown, the CityCenterDC block gathers a cluster of luxury labels around a pedestrian courtyard. The big suburban malls at Tysons Corner and Pentagon City cover the rest.

For something more local, Eastern Market on Capitol Hill has weekend craft and flea stalls next to the food hall, and Union Market has small makers' shops. The museum shops of the Smithsonian and the National Gallery are good for books, prints and gifts. There is no real craft tradition or great department store, and the souvenir carts along the Mall are best walked past.

Washington is an expensive place to stay. Hotel rooms are costly all year, and dearer still in cherry blossom season or when a big conference or political event fills the city. Restaurants, cocktails and taxis are priced for an expense-account clientele, and tipping adds to every meal.

The big saving is the sightseeing. The Smithsonian museums, the National Gallery, the zoo, the memorials and the Capitol tours are free, so a day of sights costs almost nothing. The Metro is reasonable, and staying across the river in Arlington or near a suburban station can cut the cost of a room.

Theatre is Washington's real strength. Arena Stage on the Southwest waterfront, one of the oldest resident theatre companies in the country, stages new American plays and musicals in theatres built round the stage. The Shakespeare Theatre Company does the classics in Penn Quarter, while Studio Theatre on 14th Street and Woolly Mammoth put on sharper contemporary work. The Folger has a small Elizabethan-style playhouse beside its great Shakespeare library, and Ford's Theatre puts on plays in the house where Lincoln was shot. Touring Broadway musicals play the historic National Theatre on Pennsylvania Avenue. The National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera give the city a proper classical season, and the Library of Congress holds chamber concerts in its auditorium.

Most of the music happens around U Street, Duke Ellington's old neighbourhood. The restored Lincoln and Howard theatres and long-running rock clubs bring in big touring acts, and Georgetown has a long-established jazz supper club. Go-go, the city's own percussion-driven funk, turns up at local shows. In summer, Wolf Trap in the Virginia woods holds concerts with seats on an open lawn, and Strathmore's concert hall is a Metro ride north in Maryland. There is plenty to see, though few visitors choose the city for it.

Washington has no bathing or spa tradition, and the working rhythm of a government town sets its pace. Wellness here means the spas of the larger downtown and Georgetown hotels, a scattering of day spas and yoga studios, and the gyms that office workers fill before breakfast. The calmest moments come from the city's open spaces: an early walk around the Tidal Basin, a quiet bench in the Dumbarton Oaks gardens or the National Arboretum, or a late afternoon on the Georgetown waterfront. Visitors who want rest should plan it themselves.