Morning at the CapitolEarly morning picture of Capitol, east side, 3 days before inauguration day

I recently had the opportunity to go on a tour of the dome of the Capitol. It was a great experience. We climbed more than 300 steps to a tiny balcony at the very top of the Capitol Rotunda. You can see the balcony in the following photo, along with a bit of the Apatheosis of Washington (the fresco overlooking the Rotunda).

Capitol Dome Inside BalconyThe balcony at the top of the Capitol Rotunda, just inside the Capitol Dome, with a view of the Apatheosis of Washington. Here's a view looking down on all the tourists in the Rotunda. You can sure feel some vertigo up there!

Down from inside the Capitol DomeView of the Capitol Rotunda; looking down from the inside of the Capitol Dome. The Capitol actually has two domes. One is inside the other. When they built the north and south expansions of the Capitol, the previous dome looked out of proportion to the new larger building, so they added a larger dome over the smaller one. Here's a view from between the two domes. As you can see, while the domes appear to be made of stone, they're actually made of iron and painted white.

Between the domesBetween the interior and exterior domes of the Capitol.

After climbing to the top of the interior dome, we climbed outside onto a small balcony at the top of the outer dome. The view was breathtaking.

Scenic view from the dome of the Capitol 2View of Washington, D.C., from the top of the dome of the Capitol.