Washington, DC - National Gallery of Art

I have to say that this is one of my best ALA Annuals. I've been to six workshops which is far more than I usually get to, mainly because the venues are so far apart, although I will say that I planned my schedule strategically with that in mind and skipped several interesting sessions because of their location.

We went sightseeing late yesterday afternoon at the National Gallery of Art which is lovely. We took a hour long tour of the collection, I think it was called the beginner's tour or something like that. The docent took us to see a series of paintings by European artists between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries including the only one of Leonardo Da Vinci's works outside of Europe which is a portrait of Genevre de'Benci, which, sadly, I can't seem to find an image of online. It was wonderful. It turned out that we had a half hour or so after the tour to visit the gift shop but I couldn't think of anything that could possibly represent what an awsome thing it was to see a Da Vinci in person.

Then we walked down the Mall to the White House and up to the National Press Club for a reception where we took pictures of each other on the stage which I'll share as soon as I have a moment to load them on my computer.