A few weeks ago, and in his best out-of-the-blue fashion, my
husband decided he wanted to visit his family in Alexandria for the Muslim Eid
festivities. I said I would go, however I would need one day to spend on my
own around Washington D.C. and do some museum viewing, along with food tasting
and shopping. He agreed and we booked the flight.
Our expedition lasted only three days, but it was fulfilling enough for
me. We packed light in order not to have to check any luggage in (a total
and costly enterprise these days), and I made sure there was enough space left
for my Neuhaus chocolates in my bag, which I planned to get from their shop at
Union Station.
After spending the whole of Sunday on Eid prayers and eating spicy Indian food
throughout the day, I prepared for my D.C. excursion on Monday. I left
early. Just before 10AM my husband dropped me at the Metro station in
Virginia and, about 20 minutes later, I was in D.C. I got off at the
Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter station and headed for the National Gallery
of Art and its West Building. I was interested in seeing the paintings from
the Middle Ages and, especially, the Renaissance. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was shocked at the amount of
treasures I found. The museum's imposing marble hallways lead to
individual galleries with works by Tintoretto, Titian, Bernini, Rembrandt, and
several painters of the Flemish school of the 14th and 15th centuries,
including both paintings and sculptures. My particular interest was, of
course, that of seeing the only Da Vinci in
America, the portrait of
Ginevra De' Benci.
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| Ginevra De' Benci is the American Leonardo |
The daughter of
a wealthy banker of the time, she is portrayed very much in the same way of the
Mona Lisa, with a river on one side and a forest on the other. The
expression on her face suggests a calm, though acute misdemeanor. I was
surprised to see that the back of the picture is also painted, showing
elaborate work of laurel leaves and gold. Leonardo was obviously a man of
detail. I also admired James Whisler’s
portrait of his mistress, Symphony in
White No. 1. Unlike Leonardo’s this
is quite a large painting of a very young girl with a sort of haunting look
that is softened by the lovely lace white dress she is wearing.
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Giant marble columns inside the
National Gallery of Art. |
After an hour and a half of walking, my spirit richly imbued
by the presence of so many great works of art, I became hungry. I walked all the way into the Concourse, which
is the section of the Gallery that connects with the East Building, and grabbed
an early lunch (I hadn’t had breakfast).
It was self-service and I chose a Greek-style flatbread with a green
salad and a slice of spongy carrot cake with the creamiest of cream-cheese
icings. I grabbed a San Pellegrino
limonatta to drink. All for $15 – quite
expensive in my view.
Re-inforced by this sustenance, I went back to the West
Building and into the shop in the lookout for some mementos. I got a set of six coasters, magnets for my
fridge with imprints of famous paintings, a silk scarf for a relative of ours, and
gift-wrapping paper with antique design of the different regions of Italy.
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| My new vintage set of coasters. |
I decided to leave the East building, where modernist works
of art lay, for a future trip. I went
out of the National Gallery and through
7th Street, headed for the
National Archives, a place I’d always wanted to visit since I saw the
National Treasure movies. The Archives may hold lots of information
about the nation, but not much of it is for viewing. One basically enters the building and, after
going TSA-like security, walks into a rotunda where the “Charters of Freedom”
are displayed. It starts with the Magna
Carta (although I’m not sure which Magna Carta we are talking about here, as I
saw the original one in London at the British Library), then goes on to the
original documents of the Declaration of Independence, the full Constitution of
the United States and the Bill of Rights.
Although the room is very dark, due to conservation issues of these
prized documents, the scripts are fading alarmingly.
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| The National Archives building |
After finding nothing else of interest in the Archives, I
headed for the Metro again and into Union Station for my foodie adventure. As soon as I went in, I looked for the
Neuhaus shop, which was momentarily closed, with a sign indicating that the
attendant had gone to the bank and would be back shortly. I took a moment to ponder which of the boxes
I was seeing through the glass windows I would be buying. But of course I already knew, and did not
have to wait but two minutes, when the shop attendant came back and invited me
in, all smiles. The temperature inside
the store was a cool 60F, but I was in Heaven.
I chose an
All Dark Ballotin, and a selection of
Cornet d'Oré,
Tentation and Caprice. Then I also chose three pieces to have “on
the go” with a nice cup of coffee. The
shop attendant was so thrilled about all my shopping that he did not charge me
for these latter ones.
By now I had been walking for about 4 hours and was hungry
again, so I headed downstairs for my visit to “B. Smith’s Restaurant”. It is found in an imposing area of the big
building that makes up the train station, with the highest possible ceilings,
carpeted walls and large dining salon. There
is also a bar preceding it. Since I’d
had lunch earlier, I only had a B. Smith’s limonatta, a cocktail drink made
with lemoncello liqueur, and fried oysters in aioli sauce, served on a bed of
greens with chopped pepper and mango.
Both were delicious and refreshing, and I welcomed the relaxed and quiet
atmosphere of the restaurant. The
service was very friendly and knowledgeable, and I was glad to notice the many
people of colour that patronized the place, dining unobtrusively with the rest
of us.
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| Fried oysters with aioli sauce at B. Smith's Restaurant. |
Full of contentment, my joy hit another note of happiness when I
saw Prêt-á-Manger, one of my favorite sandwich shoppes from Europe. I ordered a cappuccino and had it for dessert
with the three chocolates I had gotten as a thank-you gift from Neuhaus. Then, I headed back to Virginia, where my
husband picked me up at the same location he had dropped me earlier in the day.
