5 Best Sights in Bethesda, Montgomery County

A self-guided nature trail winds through a verdant 40-acre estate and around the headquarters of the Audubon Naturalist Society. The estate is known as Woodend, as is the mansion, which was designed in 1927 by Jefferson Memorial architect John Russell Pope. The society leads wildlife identification walks, environmental education programs, and—September through June—a weekly Saturday bird walk at its headquarters. The bookstore stocks titles on conservation, ecology, and birding, as well as nature-related gifts such as jewelry and toys.

More than 750 varieties of azaleas bloom in the 5-acre McCrillis Gardens from late March through July, and usually peak around May 1. Ornamental trees and shrubs, including a remarkable collection of rhododendrons, bloom in the warm months. The Brookside Gardens School of Botanical Art and Illustration classes are held inside the home.

This market is one of the remaining vestiges of Montgomery County's agricultural society. In the midst of the Great Depression, women gathered goods from their gardens to sell in Bethesda to residents of the District of Columbia and its growing suburbs. Today the tradition continues. Baked goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, crafts, and flea-market goods are still sold in and around this low, white building in the midst of office high-rises. (A view of the market in the 1930s is depicted in a mural on the wall of the Bethesda Post Office at 7400 Wisconsin Avenue.)

One of the world's foremost biomedical research centers, with a sprawling 322-acre campus, the NIH offers tours for the public, including an orientation tour at the NIH Visitor Information Center and one at the National Library of Medicine, that will likely be quite interesting to those interested in medicine and a little dry to everyone else. The visitor center tour discusses how health and medicine has been transformed through discovery—discoveries that have kept the blood supply safe from disease and begun mapping the human genome. There are about 1,500 ongoing clinical trials at this facility at any given time, and tours will take you through the pediatric day unit, which offers a playroom for children and a program for them to connect with pediatric patients across the country via Internet. Then the tour continues to the pediatric oncology lab, where researchers are working to improve methods to help these very children. Although best known for its books and journals—there are about 14 mi worth of them—the National Library of Medicine also houses historical medical references dating from the 11th century. A library tour includes a look at historical documents, the library's databases, and "visible human" anatomical simulator. The library was built during the Cold War, and as guides will explain, the building's roof was designed to collapse in the event of an attack from the Soviet Union, protecting the books kept below ground.