john

My wife and I are going to DC over Presidents Weekend. We are trying to decide on what section of town. We were thinking about Downtown, Capital Hill and Georgetown areas. WE are going to go sightseeing and would like to be able to walk to restaurants. What would be the best and safest area to be in? thanks

Jim Rosenberg

John, look hard at the Dupont Circle area. It's very active with a lot of restaurants, boutiques, etc.. There is convenient access to the metro for sight-seeing. For hotels, you can check a a few different places for potential deals: Radisson Barcelo; Hilton Embassy Row, or check any Dupont Circle offerings on www.quikbook.com for possibilities. We've found it better to stay in the Dupont area and just visit the areas of the monuments, etc., rather than trying to stay in the midst of them. (Those areas are not as interesting beyond the actual monuments themselves.)

Happy Contrails!

dcp

I recently booked a room via Expedia at the Hyatt Downtown for $69 a night. The hotel is approximately 3 blks from Cental Station and my room had a view of the Capital. FYI- the Capital, the mall, and Smithsonian museums are all a very easy & safe walk from the hotel.

PamSF

Agree with DuPont Circle. We loved it!
Lots of places near by including easy access to the Metro which we took most places My personal favorite place to stay was Dupont at the Circle. Do go to the Tabard for a drink. There is alot of activity in this area and we felt quite safe.

Donna

Here's another recommendation for the DuPont Circle area.

Christina

All of those areas are safe enough, you can't choose on that, assuming by Capitol Hill you mean some place close to a metro stop -- either South Capitol or Union Station. There aren't very many hotels on Capitol Hill, and non further into the real residential Capitol Hill area that I can think of (east of Supreme Court).

Georgetown isn't very convenient for public transportation because there's no metro stop. Capitol Hill doesn't have very many restaurants, but again, it depends what you mean by that term. I used to live on Capitol Hill and it was a good place to live, especially if you worked on the Hill, but I wouldn't recommend it to tourists. If you mean the hotels like the Holiday Inns or Phoenix or Hyatt (which I don't think of as really on Capitol Hill, but they call themselves there), there are places to eat around there, enough for a few days. Dupont Circle is a great area for restaurants and transportation.

Mikeee007

Another vote for Dupont Circle. As I recall, there are some seedy places around Central Station.

Dupont Circle is accessable to the Metro. Take the Metro on Saturday to King/Duke Street station and walk down King Street to Old Town Alexandria. They also have a free bus that will take you to Old Town from the Metro Station.

joebob

one more for dupont! try jurys hotel also, reasonable and nice!! eat at chipotle (carnitas buritto), obelisk, etrusco, and the brick oven pizza place (forgot the name but great).