Wednesday 1st July

Today we left Williamsburg for Washington DC. We caught the 9.36am train which arrived at Union Station at 1.15pm.

We took a cab to our hotel and were somewhat dismayed by what the taxi driver had to say about the location - out of town and no eating places/shops nearby. We decided to give it a go for one night to see how we get on and change our hotel to move further in towards the centre if necessary tomorrow.

The hotel was decent enough, good clean room with spotlessly clean linen and towels, although Terry reckoned she could smell ‘pee’ and there was a damp patch on the carpet near the bathroom, but we decided in the end it was the smell of carpet cleaner. Hope it was, anyway!

We are located in a somewhat dodgy part of the city (so we found out later) and this was confirmed by a trip to the local McDonalds (the nearest and only place nearby to get lunch) where, during the 15 minutes we were there, the police arrived twice to throw people out!

On return we decided to look at this hotel’s reviews on the internet (the words 'horse' and 'stable door' come to mind!) - and were horrified to read that some people had written that this hotel was used for prostitution and drug dealing and that they were kept awake at night by the continual noise of cars arriving and leaving, and car doors slamming. By then it was too late to change hotels so we ordered a Chinese delivery for dinner which we ate in our room behind a locked door!

We were warned beforehand by several people that Washington DC has the highest crime rate in the country so we were sort of prepared for it.

I am pleased to report that the night passed uneventfully and that our sleep was not interrupted at all and quite a decent continental breakfast was available. The hotel is practically full of families with children so we decided to stay put.

Oh well - makes for interesting travel. Variety is the spice of life, so it is said! We have stayed in many different hotels on this trip and this is our first 'bad experience' so we shouldn't complain. It isn't all that bad, anyway.