This winter holiday, I am not traveling overseas. So I am trying to take every opportunity to observe holiday festivities in DC. The Library of Congress was one of them and I had a wonderful tour given by Gerald, a dear alma mater friend who works there. It had a gorgeous Xmas tree decorated with books dedicated to 50 states. I found my kids’ birth states and mine. ☺️ The Library was built after the Capitol was in a fire in 1814 and it lost everything. Thomas Jefferson sold over 7 thousand books for about $23 thousand dollars to help start a library to provide sources and information for legislators primarily, which is now the Library of Congress. There is an exhibit of TJ’s original books and replicas and a grand room dedicated to scholars in mosaics; I enjoyed it immensely!

I was so glad to visit this on our reccent trip to DC because I did not have a chance to visit on my previous DC trip. This is the world's largest library (it does not have every single book in the world, but it does have bunches of books and also has a lot of recording too I am told). Anyone 16 years or older can get a library card and check out a book. The building itself inside and out is just spectacular and gorgeous. The library is actually several buildings but the main library is in the Jefferson Building and that's where you want to visit unless you're going to do research. Right now they are requiring timed entry passes which you can get online for free. The only time I could get was 10:45am (opening time) on Tuesday, and we had a Capitol tour scheduled an hour later. It was a short walk from there to the Capitol so we figured we had about 45 minutes for our visit and that turned out to be enough. The big items we saw were the Guttenburg Bible and Thomas Jefferson's Library (which he donated to Congress to begin the library). Not all of Jefferson's Library was viewable as some books were not there due to them digitizing the entire library. The view of the great reading room is just breathtaking. While you can definitely spend more than an hour here, if you are pressed for time, you can get it done in less than an hour for sure.

There are so many attention-getting museums and buildings that vie for our attention when visiting Washington DC. Who has time for a library? Well, get that notion of what you think a library is all about before your cross the threshold of this truly spectacular representation of art, science, law, poetry, engineering, technology. It's just beyond words. They say there is more gold in the walls, murals and paintings than the rest of the city combined. It was the first building to have electricity and until 1940, it was the premier home of all knowledge about America. I was able to go on a private tour but they have public ones that are worth it. Take the time to learn about the paintings, marble statutes and take some time to get yourself a library card! All you need is a current passport or driver's license and you too can look at the books in the stacks. No, we can't check anything out. I'm posting some photos from the tour. Some of the spaces were on the private tour, like the card catalog and the Senate reading room.