Last week, a Los Angeles Times story
touched on an approach to tourism that's gained a foothold in Italy:
sight-jogging. Over in Rome, running tourists who sign up for the program might start by doing stairs
(as in the Spanish Steps), zoom past the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, head up Capitoline Hill and back
down the other side around the Forum and the Colosseum, loop the Circus Maximus, and end, Audrey Hepburn-style,
at the Bocca della Verità. Provided that crowds are relatively light, the sight-joggers might
see the sites in a fraction of the time it takes strollers to cover the same ground. At the end of the run,
they might have an idea of what they'd like to return to, and what they'd might like to skip. What's more,
they'd certainly have gotten a better sense of the layout of the city than would those folks who opt for
horrid bus tours.
So, where is sight-jogging in D.C.? Sure, we've got Bike the
Sites. We've even got Segway
tours. And suggested monument and memorial running routes
abound
on
the
Web.
But we'd wager that some tourists, summer visitors, and locals alike might like to get their
first taste of D.C.'s sites through a running guide — that is, without having to stuff
crumpled-up map print-outs in their socks. Not everyone wants to take the
Tourmobile. And some of the best views of
Washington — such as the ones on the Mount Vernon Trail across the Potomac from
the Kennedy Center — are most easily reached on foot.
Now that we've inspired some entrepreneur to get this whole sight-jogging
business started, can we talk about how to make sure that the temperamental
water fountains around the District's monuments actually work?
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