| According to Kristina Pentland from travel guidebook publishers Rough Guides, it's a circuit that should top every visitor's list. |
| Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial needs little introduction. As the best-loved and most dramatic of the city's presidential memorials, the white-marble statue of a solemn-looking Lincoln is surrounded by engraved renderings of his most famous speeches. |
| It's one of the country's most recognizable symbols and it's both a representation of its political ideology and social activism. Hardly a year goes by without some memorable march or event taking place here. |
| The White House The White House is one of Washington's star attractions, and countless throngs proceed past its gates every year, trying to sneak a peek at the commander in chief. |
| The president's Neoclassical mansion is a compelling sight and can be visited on a tour or viewed from nearby Lafayette Square. The core of the self-guided tour of the White House concentrates on the rooms on the ground and state (principal) floors. |
| The Oval Office, family apartments, and private offices on the second and third floors are off-limits; guards make sure you don't stray from the designated route. |
| US Capitol The home to Congress is an unquestioned architectural treasure, crowned by a huge cast-iron dome that's kept by law as the highest building in town. |
| As the focus of American democracy and the seat of the legislature, the white-ribbed dome of the Capitol sits between two similarly imposing edifices for the House of Representatives and the Senate. |
| Though an inviting sight, at first glance it can seem quite daunting: the West Front is guarded and gated in the wake of 9/11, and visitors are not allowed entrance without a building pass, while the East Front is being completely reconstructed to make way for a new underground visitors centre, scheduled to open in 2006. |
| National Air and Space Museum The most popular sight in Washington, this museum is an essential stop for anyone interested in historic airplanes and spacecraft "" from the Wright Flyer to Apollo 11. |
| Since its opening in 1976 the museum has captured the attention of almost 10 million people every year. |
| This information has been extracted from Washington DC DIRECTIONS (1st edition), written by JD Dickey and Jules Brown, published by Rough Guides. |
| New from Rough Guides, the DIRECTIONS guides include a mini CD containing the full text of the guide in PDF format, complete with hundreds of weblinks. |
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