In Two Days

Note: For this itinerary, you should call in advance for restaurant and ticket reservations.

Your second day takes you to the National Mall and the Smithsonian museums, to venture through gardens and inside some of the buildings you passed the night before on your moonlight tour. Your last stop on the Mall will be at the National Archives before crossing Pennsylvania Avenue into the heart of D.C.'s fastest growing neighborhood, the Penn Quarter, to reach the International Spy Museum. Suggestion: The National Archives and the Spy Museum accept advance tour reservations, so try to arrange for those, if you can, and you'll bypass long lines. Penn Quarter is home to so many excellent restaurants and bars that you can plan on staying here for cocktails and dinner -- and nightlife, too. Start: Metro on the Blue Line to Smithsonian or L'Enfant Plaza.

1. Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden

If you've gotten off to an early start, meaning 7:30am, you may find the Mall fairly deserted. Then again, Washington is a town of early risers, so there's just as good a chance that you'll find yourself scooting out of the way of joggers and suit-clad workers scurrying to offices. At 8am, the only museum site open is the Hirshhorn's Sculpture Garden, which is a sunken, green landscape displaying some 60 large-scale sculptures. Don't miss Aristide Maillol's Action in Chains: Monument to Louis-Auguste Blanqui, which is striking at any time of the year.

2. Smithsonian Castle (Information Center)

The Smithsonian Information Center opens at 8:30am, as does its Castle Café. Stop at the information desk for brochures and information, then at the kiosk for coffee and a muffin, and sit outside in the Enid Haupt Garden to plan your moves for the day. You won't have time to tour every museum on the Mall, and at least two Smithsonians -- the National Museum of American History and the Arts & Industries Building -- are closed for extensive renovations.

3. Freer Gallery

This handsome building, with its Italian Renaissance architecture and arched courtyard, is devoted to Asian art, with one major exception: its Whistler holdings. Visit the spectacular Peacock Room, so called for the golden peacock feathers that Whistler painted upon the walls of the room, which was once part of a friend's London town house. The friend was most displeased, but today's gallerygoers are generally intrigued. Continue through other chambers of the gallery to admire ancient jade objects, early Buddhist sculpture, Islamic art, and a wealth of Asian works.

4. National Air and Space Museum

Nothing attests to human ingenuity better than this vast display of the machines we've created to fly through air and space. And yet, one of this museum's enduring attractions is something that puts those human accomplishments in perspective: The Albert Einstein Planetarium (you'll need a ticket to enter). It coaxes you to wonder about the dimensions of the universe and where it leads.

5. National Gallery Sculpture Garden

With its evening jazz in summer, ice rink in winter, and cafe all year-round, the sculpture garden is as much an urban park as a sightseeing destination. People tend to come here just to hang out. Too bad it opens so late (10am Mon-Sat, 11am Sun) and closes so early (anywhere from 5 to 9:30pm, depending on the day and time of year).

6. Take a Break -- Sculpture Garden Cafe

You've been on your feet since 7:30am! Treat yourself to a glass of wine, a Cuban panini (ham and roast pork), and maybe a slice of apple torte, and enjoy your feast on the terrace, with its view of the sculptures -- and your next destination. tel. 202/289-3360.

7. National Archives

Area residents are slow to catch on, but the National Archives has gradually been transforming itself into a multimedia complex, mounting major exhibitions, screening documentaries, and hosting talks by contemporary authors. Its finest feature, however, will always be its display of the original Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

8. International Spy Museum

Filled to the gills with spy lore and facts -- sometimes scary, sometimes silly -- the best exhibits are those at the beginning, which employ interactive games to test your skills of observation and detection. At the end, you watch videos of real-life agents talk about their experiences.

9. National Portrait Gallery & 10. American Art Museum

Before this building was even finished, in 1867, it had already served as a Civil War hospital and as the site of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball. Upon completion, the building housed patent offices, whose clerks eventually issued patents to Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and 500,000 other inventors. The Smithsonian took over the Patent Office Building and remodeled it before opening two-museums-in-one in 1968.

By 2000, the structure was again in need of renovation, this time requiring 6 years and intense improvements. When the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum reopened in July 2006, the city staged a celebration to herald this much-improved bastion of "American Originals." The museums and their vast displays do America proud, representing the nation's spirit and people at their best in every artistic genre, including presidential portraits, folk art, photographs, Latino art, African-American art, and paintings by the masters, from Gilbert Stuart to Georgia O'Keeffe. The museums are a good last stop on this tour, since they stay open until 7pm nightly. Go.

11. Take a Break -- Zola

Zola, in the same building as the Spy Museum and across the street from the Smithsonian museums, plays upon a sleuth theme in its decor. The food's for real, though, and highly recommended. tel. 202/654-0999.