The Washingon Park Gourmet Deli on 2331 Calvert St., NW, is the start/finish for three Volksmarches. The walks are nice but parking near the deli is very difficult, even at 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. We found a spot and didn't get ticketed or towed, but we have had to park several blocks away after much searching for these walks in the past. Possibly Sunday morning is better, but any other time I would recommend avoiding the parking hassle by taking Metro to the Woodley Park/Zoo station on the Red Line and walking the block to the deli. This year we did the Historic Georgetown and National Cathedral/Embassy Row walks. Both walks have extensive notes and comentary on the sites that you are passing, and tend to emphasize the residences of the famous, near-famous, and infamous.

Historic Georgetown:

The trail went up hill past some embassies and then down to a creek and back up a hill along Lover's Lane to Montrose Park. The park was the first opportunity for bathrooms as there are no bathrooms at the deli or any nearby stores (the Roy Rogers that used to have bathrooms has closed). Then we dipsy-doodled down through Georgetown to the C&O Canal. The National Park Service has a park office there where you can get a stamp for credit in the new program for Volksmarching in 10 National Historic Sites, parks, or monuments, if you are participating in that.

After the park office there is an option to extend the walk to an 11 km walk by walking down to the Potomac at Washington Harbour. We took the extra loop and would recommend it since it gave us very nice views of the river and Roosevelt Island across the way. Walking back westward along the canal we missed a turn into a shopping center that was supposed to coincide with an iron bridge across the canal. We will caution others to be on the lookout for the doorway to the shopping center right off the canal--it is easy to miss. We doubled back through the shopping center after discovering our error, and it was a surprisingly large, boutique-filled, four-story mall squeezed into a very tight space.

We continued along M street in Georgetown until almost the Key Bridge before turning uphill to Georgetown University. There is a variety of places to eat on M Street, at that mall and along the waterfront if you take that loop, but not elsewhere on the walk. After a brief incursion onto the Georgetown University grounds, we returned on N Sreet and zig-zagged our way back North to R Street. The return route was back through Lover's Lane and along Rock Creek Park to the finish point. The latter part of the route gave us over a kilometer of natural surface trail which we appreciated for some variety but it could get muddy when wet. Taking the 11 km option, reading the notes, and taking pictures apparently slowed us up a lot as we took almost 3 hours for the entire walk.

National Cathedral/Embassy Row

The trail started with a straight shot up Connecticut Avenue for 1.5 miles and passed but did not enter the National Zoo. (on the Cathedral/Zoo walk you traverse the Zoo down to Rock Creek and then back uphill again on the way out) Right after the Zoo there was a cluster of shops and restaurants which afforded a decent variety of food, so we had gyros for lunch at a Greek cafe. This is the only area with food options on the walk, but the return path also hits this area so you could choose to eat either about 20 minutes into the walk or an hour or so later toward the end of the walk.

We turned left onto Van Ness at the Intelsat complex, and I recommend entering the lobby of the building to see the communication satellites and mock-ups hanging from the building--the security guard accosted us (I expect we did not look like the typical 3-piece suite folks!) but let me tour the lobby and take pictures. After Intelsat, the trail wound around some very nice embassies before joining Wisconsin Ave. for a stretch southwards to the National Cathedral. The Cathedral looms up already when you are 1 km off or so, and it is a magnificent sight from any angle. If you have not toured the Cathedral before and have the time and energy, I would certainly recommend taking the time to do so. An especially nice option is to take the elevator to the top of the tower so that you can look out all over Washington.

We have previously toured the Cathedral and were somewhat tired, so we skipped it this time. Instead, we stopped in the Herb Cottage store right next to the Cathedral, which turned out to have many unique gift items plus a chair to rest in. From the Cathedral grounds we headed North back up to Newark Street where we turned East through an area with very nice old houses to return to Connecticut. Rather than returning to the deli using the direct route of Connecticut, there is a final loop pass the Swiss Embassy down to Calvert Street and a return to the deli along Calvert.