The View From This Public Building Is One Of The Capital's Hidden Gems And A Serene Respite From Sightseeing

Let's be honest: Much of the United States is full of uninspired, 20th-century architecture and die-cast, one-story strip malls. Not so much for Washington, D.C. — at least some of it. The central area of the capital, which contains all of those highlights that people visit D.C. to see — the National Mall, Lincoln Memorial, the White House, etc. — is stuffed full of impressive structures and views that remind visitors of the country's 18th-century, Enlightenment-era roots. One overlooked building in that general vicinity, the Old Post Office Tower, offers a 270-foot-high, unexpectedly pleasant, tourist-free view of the surrounding cityscape. If you can find your way to the top, that is.

Looking at a map, you won't find the "Old Post Office Tower" listed anywhere. You will, however, find the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC on Pennsylvania Avenue. The clock tower on the roof is the tower in question. Built from 1892 to 1899 as a federal post office, the tower and its building have served many purposes over the years: the now-defunct Dead Letters Museum (featuring undeliverable mail that got shifted to the Smithsonian in 1911), home to various government offices from 1935 to 1978, and finally a restored historical building by 1983. 

Nowadays, the Old Post Office Tower is a fully visitable, but barely known, tourist site attached to the Waldorf Astoria. Accessing it requires a bit of work, though, and necessitates going around the back of the building and looking for a little door near a Starbucks that says "Museum and Clock Tower" in gold letters. Two elevators and a circuitous route later, you'll be at the top.

Aside from the view from the Old Post Office Tower — which does include a view of the Washington Monument — the biggest attraction at the site is its bells. The 10 bells date to 1976, ring in the ever-pleasant D major, and the largest is over 4.5 feet in diameter. A volunteer organization, the Washington Ringing Society, practices ringing the bells every Thursday from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., so you've got a decent window within which to hear them. They also conduct official bell ringings on federal holidays and other assorted days of importance. 

But while a trip to the clock tower is fun and isolated from noisy tourists, the whole visit won't last too long. For the rest of your time in D.C., it's time to hit the streets (and probably the metro). First-timers are all but obligated to walk along the length of the National Mall, which aside from monuments to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, contains four major museums all in a row, west to east on the way to the Capitol building: the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (rated very badly, but arguably unjustifiably), all of which are 100% free.

There are also tons of gardens, smaller museums, and for those seeking to complete their American experience, multiple McDonald's within striking distance. Those who want something off the beaten path can always go far out of the way to Chevy Chase Village, near Bethesda, to press the joke-delivering buttons of D.C.'s quirkiest tourist attraction, the Joke Phone.