Washington DC for Labor Day
 

We will visit DC during the Labor Day weekend. Do you think we can visit the Capitol (11 am tour), Library of Congress, and the National Archives in one day (Saturday)?
How much time is the Capitol Tour? Can you (are you allowed to) spend any additional time there outside the tour?

Can you recommend a place around the Capitol for lunch?

Based on what I am reading on their web site, no advance reservations are available for the LOC - They have a 1:30 and a 2:30 tour, and considering lunch, I don’t think 1:30 is possible. How much should we allocate for this tour? Again, can you (are you allowed to) spend any additional time visiting outside the tour?

What is the best way to get from the LOC to the Archives? And how long would that take? I have no sense of distances and time necessary to allocate to each, so planning is not easy, especially that we need to be done touring/exploring at around 6pm – we meet friends for dinner.

We are planning to visit the Museum of American History, some monuments and take the night Tourmobile tour on Sunday, and play Monday morning by ear, based on what’s left to see and do.
Thanks a lot

Re the tour of the Capitol, the official Capitol website says:
“How much time should I allow to visit the Capitol Visitor Center?
We recommend that you plan to allow at least 90 minutes for your visit to the Capitol Visitor Center and to tour the historic Capitol.”

and

“Tours of the Capitol begin with a 13-minute orientation film and last approximately one hour.”

The Library of Congress website says:

“Library Tours
The Library of Congress offers hour-long, fully accessible docent-led tours of the historic Thomas Jefferson Building.”

I went to the Library of Congress and the Archives when my parents visited and we walked between the two. It was a long walk so you would probably want to do something else on a time restriction.

www.hopstop.com can give you the walking distance, as well as transit help.

www.wmata.com is the official Metro system website (Metrorail and Metrobus)

There is also the Circulator which operates a Mall loop on the weekends. You can google for that info.

If you need to be with friends by 6, I am not sure you will be able to do all three comfortably unless you take the first Capitol tour.

"Can you recommend a place around the Capitol for lunch?"

The Capitol Visitors Center cafeteria is not half bad. Plenty of options for kids and adults.

If you wanted a sit down place I like The Dubliner which is just a few blocks away and near Union Station.

But, with your tight schedule I might suggest your best option is to grab lunch in the Capitol visitors center.

The Dubliner is nowhere even close to the LOC.

Le Bon Cafe and Café Recess are both right next to LOC. Both are very quick and pretty good (especially Le Bon Cafe).

I don't think you have time for a place with table service between your two tours.

You should also consider the Longworth Cafeteria (in the basement in the Longworth House Office Building) mid-way between your two tours (ask your Capitol Bldg. tour guide for exact directions).

Metro is the quickest way from LOC to Archives.

Get on at Capitol South (1-1/2 blocks from LOC). Take Blue or Orange train to L'Enfant Station (2 stops) and transfer to a Green or Yellow train toward Archives station (1 stop). The Archives are right across Penn. Ave. from the Archives Metro station.

Here is a Metro system map. Click on Capitol South and Archives stations on this map for greater detail.
http://www.stationmasters.com/System...ystem_map.html

The Dubliner is less than a 10 minute walk from the entrance to the Capitol visitors center - and that was with a 6 year old in town.

I'm quite certain I've walked between the two. If I'm not mistaken, it's even closer to the Senate office building which is why Dodd and Kennedy hung there often.

I'd try to book an earlier tour of the Capitol (I plugged in a request for 4 and several earlier timeslots were available, starting at 8:50 a.m.), then you can make the earlier LOC tour, and get Archives tickets for later, they have plenty of tickets available up through 5:15 p.m. (and still have 4 left as I post for 5:30 p.m.) and stay open until 7.

Since you are there on a weekend I'd definitely take the Circulator rather than Metro from LoC to Archives, catch it at 1st St NE at Maryland Ave:
http://www.dccirculator.com/index.ph...=24&Itemid=24#

Wow, great info, thanks a lot. Based on that:
1) We’ll have lunch at the Capitol cafeteria, or Le Bon Café if we want to take it easy
2) If we cannot get to see the Archives on Sat, we might leave that for one of the other 2 days

It takes us about 1 ½ hr (drive and train) to get into DC from where we will be staying, so getting a much earlier tour would be hard, but we’ll see. The subway info is really helpful.
DancingBear, why do you recommend the Circulator on a weekend?
Thanks

The Circulator route around the Mall only operates on the weekend. Easier IMO to just get on the one bus than to take Metro and have to transfer trains.

That Circulator route runs clockwise. I'd get off on Independence after it passes the Air and Space Museum and walk across the Mall and through the Sculpture Garden to the Archives, or else you can stay on the bus until it gets down and back on Constitution.

DB, that’s a very good reason :)
It definitely sounds better than the subway option. And thanks for the link, it is really helpful.

We still need to figure out our schedule, and I will try to leave it flexible, and only book things that need to be booked. Everything else, we’ll do as much as we can, without killing ourselves. This way, we’ll enjoy the city and will want to go back.

I wouldn't call the Dubliner close to the LOC, either, and don't know if you could get there in 10 minutes. There wouldn't be any point to going there, though, when there are so many places so much closer to LOC on PEnnsylvania Ave SE or around Capitol SOuth metro, etc. However, it is closer to the Capitol building than the LOC, depends what you want. But it wouldn't make sense to me to go to the Capitol, back up to the Dubliner, then back down to LOC. I wouldn't go there anyway, don't think of it has some family lunch place.

The Archives is open until 7:00pm during the season (much shorter hours in winter). 6:00pm or later there is no line.

Your schedule is very doable.