It’s been a while since our last visit to Bartholdy Park near the US Botanic Gardens; we don’t live in the immediate area anymore, and for the past few years much of the park and its iconic fountain have been walled off for restoration work. Sunday after church we dropped by to check out the area.
The walls are gone and Bartholdy Fountain and the rest of the park have been restored to their former glory, an oasis of literally vegetative relaxation amidst near-Southwest DC.
We also dropped by Mitsitam Cafe at NMAI for a bite, and stopped at NASM to see Neil Armstrong’s gloves — which turned out to be on display at the Chantilly annex, not the Mall building. Oops.
Instead we went to the National Gallery to see some Dutch portrait prints from the library and take one last look at the still life paintings of Willem Van Aelst exhibit.
On the way we discovered that one of many posthumous casts of Rodin’s Thinker lives in the National Gallery ground floor sculpture galleries, along with the somewhat whimsical Actaeon by Paul Manship.
