New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington

The departure

After about a month of discussions, in the end we opted for a do-it-yourself vacation booked entirely online based on our needs, both economic and organizational. And now the moment to leave has finally arrived… Departure on 8/10/12 from Rome to New York, with a stopover in Paris, booked for a total of 9 and ½ hours of flight, without counting a one-hour delay for the connecting flight. But overall the trip was smooth, the Airfrance plane was comfortable with screens on every seat so you could watch films, listen to music and even play video games. Having arrived at JFK airport in New York, after an hour of various checks, check out, various questions, we go outside, but it's not over yet because to get to the hotel we need a taxi (we took a luxury car which is more convenient, $60!) and another hour of travel. New York, here we come…...

Already from the taxi we begin to see the legendary skyscrapers, the skyline, but when we arrive at Times Square we felt like we were at the center of the World!!!! The Paramount hotel, booked from their website, is right 50 meters from Times Square, the location could not have been better; the room was a bit small but otherwise everything was ok. Worn out by the long journey, we manage to do nothing but take a little reconnaissance stroll (wow, we even managed to see the tip of the Empire lit up red-white-green like the Italian flag since today is Columbus Day and there was the festival of Italians in America, a spectacle!) and go to dinner in a pub near the hotel. I remind you not to forget that the price in America is intended excluding taxes (which in New York are 8.75%) and tips which are usually 20% of the total bill.

The adventure begins

The adventure begins! We head toward the meeting point for the tour we had booked on the newyorkwelcome.net site to visit the neighborhoods of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn and who do we run into???? The first Italians we meet are two guys from Bari who always come on vacation to my little town Porto Potenza Picena and we had never met before. Only in New York can this happen!!!! Anyway the tour was interesting from some points of view since these neighborhoods, not being very touristy, are not easily visitable on your own; in reality they are not very dangerous as is still thought in Italy (except at night), but they are very sprawling and there aren't many things to visit (the Yankees stadium in the Bronx, the Italian neighborhood, the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, the view of Manhattan from Brooklyn and little else).

More than anything there are the various scenarios that alternate as you pass from the skyscrapers of Manhattan to the ghettos of the outskirts (imagine the typical fire escapes or the basketball courts between the buildings or the buildings full of murals), so with the tour we managed to get around them in a few hours. The negative note was precisely the organization of the tour: the guide arrived 1/2h-3/4h late, the guide seemed very listless, plus the whole tour was on the bus, they only had us get off for the Yankee Stadium shop while the stadium cannot be visited without some special permits, for the Italian neighborhood market where Italian products are sold from Barilla pasta to Rovagnati cooked ham (but what did we come for!), and to photograph the skyline from a pier in Brooklyn.

I would have liked to take a walk along these streets, like in a Spike Lee film! Once the tour was over, we begin the tour of Manhattan starting from Times Square with all its billboards, the sparkling shops and the crowd of people who at every moment of the day fill the square: FANTASTIC!!! Still open-mouthed we take Broadway Avenue (the street of theaters) to reach Union Square (a quiet square full of squirrels), to Chelsea (a young neighborhood with the Chelsea Market and the High Line, an elevated park, very particular) up to Greenwich Village (another very young neighborhood where the university is also located and the park where in the afternoon students meet to talk, play music, play…).

At dinner time we return toward Times Square and in the subway station we see a breakdance show by some guys who had to stop because of a rather tipsy lady who wanted to dance with them in an obscene manner (she even pulled down her pants) until a policeman had to intervene: this is New York!!! Now it's dark and if before Times Square I had said fantastic now I have to say SUPERFANTASTIC!!! With the lights and signs all lit up you no longer know where to look, it's truly a spectacle that leaves you speechless…. Still dazzled by the pleasant noise of Times Square we return to our room with a great desire to taste another piece of the apple…

A stroll around New York

Second day very gloomy (like the first) but we don't lose heart and head toward Rockefeller Center, known above all for the ice skating rink and the enormous Christmas tree, passing along 5th Avenue, the characteristic street of New York where you can find fantastic shops, almost museums, of big brands at exaggerated prices, but very beautiful to see. A visit to Radio City Music Hall, the huge theater in '40s style, still operating for concerts and various events, a nice little treat from Magnolia Bakery, sublime! and when the sun starts to come out we can go to the Top of the Rock, the observation deck on the 80th floor of the GE building (before they wouldn't let us up because, due to the bad weather, there was no visibility).

They advised us to buy the ticket online (we got it on the site to avoid standing in line, even though in reality there was no line, but at least one less thing to think about. Impressive the elevator that gets you up in about 15 seconds, with the glass ceiling where all the colored lights flash at you. But even more impressive is the panorama seen from up here: on the south side, the skyscrapers including the Empire, the Chrysler Building, the two new towers, until in the distance you catch a glimpse of a tiny Statue of Liberty; on the north side, what immediately catches the eye is the huge green patch immersed in the metropolis, it's Central Park, in which the major lakes can be distinguished.

Needless to say, it's a real SPECTACLE!!!! Advice: even though it's open until late at night, go during the day when you can clearly make out Central Park whereas when it's dark it remains in shadow and you might miss a beautiful experience. After a quick lunch (a hot dog bought on the street from a cart, very good), together with our new friends from Bari, we rent bicycles to take a nice ride in Central Park. You can also go around on foot, since in reality you can't access the inner paths by bike, but consider that it's 6km long and 2km wide, so if you want to do it all or at least the main attractions, it's better to take a bike. Another tip: at the entrance you'll find many guys offering their bikes, don't go to the first one you meet and don't accept their first offer, haggle until you reach a reasonable price, we paid about $20 each for 4h, but you can get it for less too.

We begin the tour, on bike you can only ride on the outer roads, but with the map in hand, we enter on foot and stop to see the main attractions: the Bethesda fountain, the castle, the various lakes, until we reach the largest lake, very very beautiful. It's not easy to describe, but imagine watching a film, with people running around the lake or riding bikes or rollerblading on the paved roads, while all around you see skyscrapers towering over you (from the main road you can clearly see the Guggenheim, the Flick Collection and the Met) and the noises of traffic that seem very far away.

You understand why they call it the lung of New York, if only we had a park like this in our cities too! VERY BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE!!! Once we managed to find the point where we had to leave the bikes (in the dark we got lost in the park…), tired but happy, we grab a quick sandwich at Wendy's (bleah!) and off to the hotel.

The financial district and Brooklyn

Today we head toward the southern area of Manhattan, so we take the subway to go toward Wall Street, the Stock Exchange (the stock market), the Financial Bank, the buffalo statue, the World Trade Center, the new towers, etc. We also wanted to take the ferry to go to the Statue of Liberty island but, perhaps because it was the first day of good weather after 4 days, perhaps because we arrived in the late morning, there was an insane line (about 3-4h) so we gave up. We'll come back another day.

Anyway the tour in the financial area was nice, now when we watch the business news we can say "we've been there!" In the afternoon we meet up with a friend of ours who has been living in Brooklyn for a year and decide to go to Little Italy (which in reality is only two blocks) and Chinatown, which amazed me because it is very chaotic, full of Chinese people around, but strangely it is not dirty, neither on the street nor in the shops, in fact there are typical little shops that sell original clothing and shoes at prices a little lower than normal. A unique experience was eating in a Chinese restaurant: nice atmosphere, excellent cuisine, different from what you find in Italy which is very greasy and fried, the only thing the same as Chinese restaurants in Italy are the waiters, a bit surly.

Once lunch was over, some Chinese fruit bought on the street from the stalls: luckily our friend speaks good English, otherwise we would have missed something very particular. We take a little stroll through the neighborhoods of Soho and Nolita, known for the nice shops of youth clothing at all prices; it almost feels like being in London, the kids strolling dress in the most disparate ways, with colored hair, mohawks: very nice! Then a quick beer in a place in Brooklyn to chat as friends: at 7 in the evening there were already quite a few young people at the pub, loud rock music, working pool tables, beers and snacks galore, how nice the young neighborhood is! Around 9 pm we return to Manhattan by subway getting off in the legendary Grand Central Terminal, very beautiful, and with a bit of energy still in our bodies (after 3 days of various kilometers on foot!) we decide to go to the Emp

ire State Building which is open until 2 at night. We had bought the ticket from home on cityexperts.com (a site recommended because it is reliable and also offers various attractions at interesting prices) again to avoid the lines so we immediately go up to the 86th floor, but so far all already seen, we've already been to the Top of the Rock. It's when we go outside onto the terrace that I begin to lose my breath and I feel like crying at the MAGNIFICENT SPECTACLE that presents itself before my eyes!!! At night New York is truly impressive, much more than by day: the skyscrapers fill with lights, the tips change color continuously, in between the streets all yellow and luminous, even the bridges can be made out well lit, it seems like a gigantic Christmas tree, but in reality there aren't enough words and appropriate descriptions to explain what you see from this point.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the most beautiful thing I've seen in the whole trip!!!! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, truly beautiful!!!!! With this vision in our eyes, it's time to truly go dream, so everyone off to bed….

Boston

Very early wake-up because today we're going on an excursion out of town, to Boston. We had booked it from home again on the cityexperts.com site. You'll say to me, why Boston of all places? Nothing particular, only because otherwise I would never have gone there again (unless I take another trip to New York, as is likely), since I wouldn't leave from Italy just to see it, this way we manage to see all the big cities of the east coast. The minibus isn't exactly the best but on the other hand the guide is really great: a guy who explains well the history and geography of both New York and Boston and doesn't refuse to answer any of our questions.

First stop at Harvard University, which is almost a city in itself it's so big, then the center of the city following the Freedom Trail, a red line on the ground, with the visit of the main attractions of Boston, then Quincy Market where there are several little restaurants for lunch and several very nice little shops, finally we head toward the pier to see the oldest boat in America, still working. At this point we return to New York (it takes almost 4 hours!). Tips: in Boston it's much colder than New York, so dress warmly; if you're not interested in visiting it, skip this excursion since it was all interesting anyway but nothing amazing, the trip is long and in half a day you can't visit the city well, so maybe it was better to stay one more day in New York. It was nevertheless a nice experience.

We return to the Big Apple and immerse ourselves in the lights of 5th Avenue and then to the hotel.

The Statue of Liberty

Today we're finally going to see the Statue of Liberty. We take the subway and get to Battery Park, where the pier is located where the ferry docks to do the tour of the islands; this time the line is more acceptable, ticket in hand, again purchased on cityexperts.com, after an hour of waiting we board, first stop Liberty Island. We had been told that the statue was nothing special: compared to the skyscrapers of Manhattan it's small. Instead it's truly BEAUTIFUL, maybe because it's the symbol of America, maybe because of its position (from the island there's a fantastic view of Manhattan), maybe because we got a clear day with no clouds, well the photos speak for themselves.

This old lady of 125 years is still very charming! A walk through the greenery of the island and then we take the ferry again to go to Ellis Island, where the immigrants who wanted to enter America arrived, which is why they set up a museum on immigration and a wall with the names of all the immigrants (we had fun looking for our surnames, incredible, they're there!). We return to the mainland and a mandatory stop is the Ground Zero area, in reality it's still all a construction site, so the part where the twin towers were is fenced off, you can only enter by requesting free tickets at the visitor center and then doing the usual line for check-in.

Where the towers stood, they built two pool fountains as big as the perimeter of the towers themselves, to make us realize how big they were, plus there's a museum about September 11th that's very very moving, with real photos, real phone calls, etc. We decided not to enter, because it seemed to me like something very constructed, that is, the pain of those days rendered to the nth degree: ok we suffered, we're still suffering because of this thing, but there's no need for all this since they've already shown us everything in the news, documentaries and various films... But that's my personal choice.

So we limited ourselves to walking around the fence and we saw the wall dedicated to the firefighters who died on September 11th, the church that helped the families in that episode, naturally the new towers that can be seen even from afar and the various objects that people have left in memory. In the afternoon we returned to the northern area to visit the MOMA, the museum of modern art; we bought the ticket at the hotel on the usual site since the previous morning there was a crazy line, while in the late afternoon there's almost no one. Tips: if you're not interested in art, skip all the museums or at most choose to do only one, because they take several hours and it's more worth it to see New York from the outside than inside a museum; find out which days you can enter for free, because every museum has one free day a week for everyone.

We chose the Moma to see Van Gogh's "Starry Night," since we have the reproduction in our room and now that we can see it for real we couldn't miss it. The works are beautiful in our opinion and the visit was interesting, but we don't understand anything about art so we did a quick tour until 5 pm, closing time, when they almost kicked us out to leave....

Back outside, we take a stroll on 5th Avenue for the shops that are a bit more economically reachable: Niketown, the official Nike store on 5 floors; Fao Schwarz, the legendary 3-floor toy store where the Big Piano is found, the luminous piano on the floor that you can play with your feet, played by Tom Hanks in the movie "Big," and the sun-shaped clock from the movie "Home Alone 2"; the underground Apple Store, accessible from a giant glass cube, impressive the crowd that was there, you couldn't get in! Arriving at Central Park, we take a walk through the Upper East Side, where in reality there are only 5-star luxury hotels, classy condos and the Met, Guggenheim and Frick Collection museums, which are beautiful even just seen from the outside. We take the subway again to return to the hotel, almost exhausted but truly happy with everything we saw today.

Awesome gospel mass

In the morning we had booked the excursion to Harlem, again on the site cityexperts.com, so by bus we cross the Upper West Side, where there are lots of stately buildings and the guide explains that famous people live there, from Julia Roberts to De Niro, from Al Pacino to Richard Gere, and many others. We get to Harlem and stop on the street of the Apollo Theater, the oldest in New York, where we see the shop shutters painted with fantastic murals: the view of the street all colorful is beautiful. Then we stop again on the little hill to see the oldest house in New York and in front of it the street surrounded by houses like row houses, very particular because they're in '40s style.

We take the bus again and cross the streets of Harlem (it feels like reliving a movie) until we reach the border with the Bronx, where the little Baptist church is located that hosted us to see the gospel mass. Nothing more SPECTACULAR!! Just like you see in the movies, the men did the choir (depending on the period they switch, sometimes there are the women, sometimes the men and sometimes both), the women in the audience dressed up with their little hats and the children with jackets and ties.

At the beginning the choir entered with music playing as if the guests were entering a TV show, songs after songs, every now and then the pastor encouraged the audience with phrases (even comical ones) to which everyone responded in chorus "Amen"; at a certain point they all turned toward us at the back of the church and sang us a thank-you song for being there with them and at the end of the song, they all stood up and shook our hands one by one. You realize that for them the mass is a celebration, praising the Lord makes them happy and the fact that you went to pray with them, excites them even more.

They only want you to respect their traditions, they allow you to take photos and videos, to sing with them, but during the moments of prayer they demand silence and respect, so once the gospel mass was over we left accompanied by the song "Happy Days" because the actual mass would begin, which only members of the community can participate in. I can say that, despite not understanding much English, especially if spoken quickly and in dialect, it was a phenomenal experience, highly recommended! Also recommended is the choice of the agency, because they gave us a nice tour of the neighborhood, the guide was very good, well-prepared on everything, kind and available for every request of ours and the church wasn't the Anglican one chosen by everyone and therefore taken by storm by hundreds of visitors who line up to enter, but it was a tiny church on the outskirts that welcomed us warmly.

Back in Manhattan, we take a stroll on the Upper to see the Museum of Natural History and the Lincoln Center, very nice, then go down to the East Village, a young and alternative neighborhood; here there aren't many things to see, rather there are venues to experience: there are several pubs with a row of Harleys parked in front, including the Hells Angels Motorcycle (New York motorcycle club), there's the John Varvatos clothing store in place of the most famous rock venue in New York, CBGB, and there's a nice park that runs along the East River.

At sunset time we head to Brooklyn, specifically the Dumbo area, almost under the Brooklyn Bridge, to be able to witness the INCREDIBLE VIEW OF THE SKYLINE: sitting on a lawn by the river, we see in the background the sky red from the sunset, the horizon cut by the bridge, to our right rise the skyscrapers of the southern part of Manhattan that begin to light up, below the soft sound of the water moving slowly, so romantic!; gradually, the more the sun goes down, the darker it gets and the more the skyline lights up until in the darkness you can only see a thousand yellow and red lights reflected on the mirror of water.

I insist, don't miss this spectacle, it's truly worth it!!! At dinner time we meet up with our Italian friend who lives here and we have a nice Asian-American dinner, that is, a modern cuisine that mixes the tradition of American dishes with that of Asian dishes: all very good, but also very expensive, the three of us paid $200! Nice experience anyway. After dinner we go to a venue with live music, until 4 in the morning, when a bit tipsy we take the subway to return to the hotel. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL EVENING!!!!

Off to Philadelphia

Guys, unfortunately a week has already passed and we have to leave New York, sniff sniff! WHAT A FANTASTIC CITY, it will stay forever in our hearts and I'm sure I'll return to take another bite of the Big Apple. But let's not lose heart: our adventure continues... Still a bit dizzy from the excesses of the night before, we give a last goodbye to NY and take a taxi to JFK airport where the rental car awaits us, booked from the site eNoleggioAuto.com.

The agency is Dollar and two surprises await us, one bad and one good: the bad one is that we had to pay more, beyond what they had already taken from the booking, for a full tank of gas, drop-off, toll pass and various taxes, so from a money-saving thing it became a real expense; the good surprise was the car, since we booked a small Chevrolet Aveo, because it was the cheapest, and we ended up with a spacious sedan, the Mitsubishi Galant! And off we go, departing for a brand new adventure: driving on the roads of America... After getting lost once, after witnessing with our own eyes a spectacular RealTV-style accident, in 2-3 hours we arrive at the hotel in Philadelphia, the Rodeway Inn Center City booked from the site booking.com.

We have just enough time to do a quick visit of the city, then we take the car again to go to the Wells Fargo arena where a legendary NBA game awaits us, Philadelphia 76ers vs. Boston Celtics. I had been dreaming of seeing one for years, but the wonder was also seeing the arena: inside you could get lost, there were about twenty fast food stands, some selling fries, some roast chicken, some cutlets, some chicken wings, etc, as well as gadget shops, presentations of new cars and more.

The game was actually only a pre-season, so a friendly, but I liked it a lot anyway; we bought the ticket on the official site nba.com, so we entered without a line, we take a stroll inside the arena and then we enjoy the spectacle of the game which is like what you see on TV: music at full volume, the announcer shouting at every basket, during the breaks they put on entertainment shows with flag throwers and dancers or they film the spectators and show them on the 4-sided jumbotron above the court, so you see people doing anything to get filmed, and last but not least they launch souvenir t-shirts to the spectators with giant slingshots. Not to mention that Americans watch the game as if it were a movie (maybe they're used to it) all with trays full of stuff to eat, in your face, you fatsos! Unforgettable experience, highly recommended even for those who don't like basketball.

Once the game is over, we return to the hotel because tomorrow a nice walk awaits us!

Philadelphia

The Philadelphia tour begins (on foot!), so we head toward the old city; I'll spare you the history but in Philadelphia there's a lot of it since it was the first American capital and that's why there are still many neoclassical-style monuments, such as the Old City Hall, Independence Hall, Congress Hall and in front of it the Liberty Bell (the bell that marked many important episodes in American history), the first bank, Betsy Ross's house (the lady who sewed the first American flags for many years), etc. Walking we return to the newer part of the city and so we find skyscrapers, including the two famous glass ones, several shops, several murals especially on the walls of the parking lots, until we reach the main square with the City Hall, the statue with the word "Love" and nearby a covered market, very convenient for quick lunches.

From the square, we move toward the northwest along the wide avenue that became famous because the flags of all the countries of the world are attached to the lampposts (except Cuba and Israel which are enemies of the USA); at the end of this long avenue, you arrive at the art museum, with its staircase made famous by the movie "Rocky," precisely for this reason in front of the museum there's a statue depicting Rocky himself.

Next to the museum there's a romantic path that runs alongside the river and reaches the neighborhood with the Boathouses, that is, the houses built on the riverbank; it's fantastic to see that moving just one kilometer away from the city it feels like being somewhere else entirely, it almost looks like a landscape of some valley in Trentino! We return to the more commercial area for a stroll among the shops of Philadelphia (there's no comparison with those of New York!) and then dinner with sushi near the hotel. After dinner, just for a change, we take another little walk through the center, which has a whole different effect with the lights reflecting on the white marble of the City Hall, the illuminated tips of the two tallest skyscrapers, the lights on the artists' street: here too, the night makes the city more fascinating.

Once the tour is over we return to the hotel, reflecting on the day just passed: New York is spectacular, while Philadelphia is smaller and much less showy, the difference lies precisely in the modernity of one and the antiquity of the other, so they don't cancel each other out but it's definitely worth seeing both. I could surely stay in NY even a month and more, while in Philadelphia a day or a little more is enough to see it all.

Off to Washington

We take the car again to leave Philadelphia and head south; first stop, after about an hour of travel, is Lancaster, a small country town known for being the city of the Amish (that religious community Mormon-style). First of all we visit a house that had been inhabited by an Amish family until a few years ago, the guide then explains their habits: the lack of electricity in the houses, the very sober clothes they wear on various occasions, the fields surrounding the house with wheat, tobacco crops, etc and the farms of chickens, goats, etc. up to the one-room school typical of the Amish.

But that wasn't enough for us: we want to see the real Amish community! So we drive around for half an hour through the hills of Lancaster looking for their houses; practically they're everywhere, no need to look for them, you see carriages passing, men on the plow, kids at school and women hanging laundry. We even manage to take a few sneaky photos, since they don't want to be photographed. We set off again and after 2-3 hours we arrive in Washington; just enough time to go up to the room, booked from the hotel's own site, the District Hotel, and then a nice walk to get an idea of how the city is structured. More or less it's organized like New York, in miniature, with the vertical streets, that is, the streets of NY, which are named with increasing numbers from east to west and the horizontal ones, that is, the avenues of NY, which are named with increasing letters from south to north.

We get as far as the White House which, all lit up, looks like a bright star in the darkness of the night, with the helicopter circling over our heads every 5 minutes. Right behind it begins the National Mall, with the obelisk, the WWII memorial and the reflecting pool: at night it's all a very evocative play of lights and shadows. Truly beautiful! Wandering around it got late and we haven't had dinner yet, so we head back toward the hotel and come across a supermarket open 24 hours a day in typical American style, where we get a slice of pizza and eat it in the room: often in America it's the best solution to eat decently and spend reasonably!

Washington

Today we take a nice tour of Washington (naturally all on foot!), starting from the White House since by now we know the way well, very beautiful by day, especially if the sun is shining on the white of the building.

We walk around it until we reach the National Mall, with all the most famous monuments of Washington, I'll list them without dwelling too much, because anyway you'll find explanations all over the web: the Reflecting Pool (unforgettable the scene from "Forrest Gump" when he jumps into the pool) and at its end the Lincoln Memorial, very significant for Americans, but also for tourists, the landscape you see at the top of the steps is imposing, unmissable; the Vietnam War Memorial, known as "The Wall"; the Korean War Memorial, that is, statues of soldiers walking looking over their shoulders; we head south, to the lake to go around it and in order we find: the Martin Luther King monument; the Roosevelt one, that is, a set of walls on which his most famous phrases are engraved; the Jefferson one, the president most visited by Americans after Lincoln for requests of all kinds; once the tour o

f the lake is over, we come across the WWII memorial, that is, a square with an enormous fountain in the center surrounded by pillars each representing one of the 50 American states; this time we head east and climb the little hill to reach the foot of the Washington Monument, the very famous obelisk (you can enter and go up, but there's only a small number of tickets available per day, so for those who want to, it's advisable to go early in the morning and line up); continuing along the Mall, you reach the Smithsonian, a group of buildings, including a beautiful red brick castle, that contain about ten museums of every kind, all with free entry, since they're funded by Smithson's inheritance (we didn't see even one for lack of time, but for those who stay a few more days I've been told it's worth it); walking further through the lawns of the Mall, you finally reach the eastern end where

the Capitol stands, the very famous Capitol you see on the news, with the very tall dome topped by a statue of liberty; we enter and they have us do a tour of the hall and the first-floor room, while to enter the rooms of the House and Senate you need a special permit that can be requested from the authorities; right behind it is the Library of Congress, a very beautiful building. I've told you about it in half a page but don't think it's all close together, quite the opposite, in fact we walked several kilometers to see them all, but the beauty of Washington lies precisely in all these monuments, which are truly beautiful, so you walk with pleasure.

The problem is that between one and the other there's nothing, that is, you walk among the lawns of the Mall and it seems you never arrive, while in New York there's always something to see or do, starting from the shops, to the venues, not to mention the mass of people around you, it's surely less tiring to walk so much. So, dead tired, we take a little stroll in the more modern part of Washington, where there are very nice shops and restaurants, we have dinner (finally a nice big steak!) and then straight to the room.

Arlington Cemetery

We would have liked to do another tour of Washington, especially the commercial area for a quiet stroll and some shopping, but we had to pick up the car from the parking lot to avoid paying another day, since it's not exactly cheap. So we leave the city center and move north to visit a very imposing sanctuary, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is supposed to be the largest Catholic church in the West. Then we return south of the city to make a stop at the Arlington military cemetery; I must say it's very beautiful and very touching (there are over 250,000 graves), but above all enormous, just think there are named streets so you can orient yourself, commemorative squares, etc.

The key points are: the graves of JFK, his wife and their two children placed one next to the other and topped by a flame that never goes out; along this street, there's the grave of his brother Robert Kennedy; there are many scenic spots, very evocative, especially the highest part where the Robert Lee memorial stands, from which you enjoy a fantastic view: you see the white graves of the cemetery perfectly aligned with each other that contrast with the green of the lawns of the hills and further in the background you see the whole Mall of Washington, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol; the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, that is, a white mausoleum protected by an armed guard who every five minutes does a little "show" marching.

We take the car again to go see the Iwo Jima monument, that famous statue of soldiers planting a flag in the ground (remember the cover of the movie "Flags of Our Fathers"?), built in a square near the cemetery.

The return

Now it's really time to go to Dulles airport, since it takes about an hour to get there, where we'll leave the car and take the plane that will take us back to Italy... This time this FANTASTIC METROPOLITAN ADVENTURE is really over!!! It will always stay in our memories and in our hearts, because America is always America and above all New York is always MORE THAN STUNNING. All in all, it was a beautiful trip, but also quite expensive, so you decide based on your needs. Happy travels everyone!!!!