Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Library of Congress - Washington, DC


We planned a long weekend trip to Acadia National Park in Maine in October 2013 to see the fall foliage.  Our first flight into Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC was uneventful, however our late evening flight was cancelled due to fog in Bangor.  While cutting our visit to Acadia short, this gave us an unexpected 20 hour layover in Washington, DC.  The airline provided us with a discount for a local hotel.  Since our new flight wasn't due to leave until late in the afternoon, we asked the hotel to hold our bags during the day.  We headed to the Metro station about three blocks away, bought tickets and rode to the Capitol South station.  Once we left the Metro, our first stop was the Library of Congress, located just behind or east of the Capitol Building and south of the Supreme Court.  A recreation of Thomas Jefferson's library is housed on the second floor, but flash photography is prohibited and the light levels are too low for decent pictures without a flash.


The Capitol Building is across First Street

The interior of the entryway

The Gutenberg Bible

The entryway from upstairs

The dome of the reading room

The reading room is only open to documented researchers

More views of the entry

The second floor columns and ceiling of the entryway

There is no entrance fee to visit the Library of Congress.  Entrance requires passing through a metal detector and any items you carry in must be scanned.

The library website is http://www.loc.gov/index.html.

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