Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Thomas Jefferson was the first US secretary of state, the second vice president and the third president. Not to mention the former governor of Virginia and the lead author of the Declaration of Independence. Hence it is not too surprising he has got one of the most noteworthy memorials in Washington.

It is not on the National Mall but on the axis that cross the National Mall at the Washington Monument and got the White House on the one end and the Jefferson Memorial on the other just at the shore of the Tidal Pool.

The monument itself is a big building with a massive dome shape after the dome at Monticello - the home of Thomas Jefferson. In the centre of the building is a huge bronze statue of Jefferson. On the walls of the building is different quotations from the writings of Thomas Jefferson including the Declaration of Independence.

It is free to go and visit the memorial but you will have to walk around the Tidal Pool to actually get to the monument.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial, dedicated in 1940, honors Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence.

The Jefferson Memorial is my own favorite among all the memorials and monuments in Washington. The location is nearly perfect—a classical rotunda on the edge of the Tidal Basin and surrounded by the Japanese flowering cherry trees.

The memorial was designed by architect John Russell Pope who drew inspirtation from by Jefferson’s own interest in classical architecture and his designs for Monticello and the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. In the center of the memorial's own rotunda is a statue of Jefferson by Rudolph Evans. On the surroudning walls, the visitor sees excerpts from Jefferson’s major writings, including the Declaration of Independence and letters to James Madison and George Washington forming a "shrine to freedom" as Franklin D. Roosevelt described it. Exhibits on Jefferson and his times and presidency and a book and gift shop are in the lower part of the memorial.