Walk away from the wild side

August is not the best time to visit Washington but that does not stop tourists toiling around in shorts and T-shirts, clutching water bottles and viewing the sights through the shimmering heat. The residents, meanwhile, usually try to escape.

The Atlantic beaches are only 120 miles away but in two years this correspondent has never got there. The trouble is the Chesapeake Bay bridge which must be traversed before you can sniff the sea breezes. As speed falls to a crawl in the miles-long tailback to the bridge and the temperatures climb, the temptation is to chicken out and detour into Annapolis. There, you can stroll around the river front, watch the weddings in the Naval Academy, do a historical tour and eat crabcakes, the local speciality.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, if you are equipped for the humid heat (i.e. loose clothes, a hat, sunburn lotion and lots of water,) there is much to see and do. And the most interesting things are free. Without paying a cent you can get guided tours of the US Capitol, the White House, the Smithsonian museums, wander around the Lincoln and Jefferson monuments, the new Roosevelt memorial, the Vietnam Wall, the eerie Korean War memorial and Arlington cemetery. And if you are a good walker, you can do all this on foot. This is the great thing about Washington. It is all so reachable.

You can start off at Union Station, reached by the cheap, clean Metro system, walk over to the Capitol with its gleaming white dome and look down the Mall where everything is - or almost everything. Stretched before you is "monumental" Washington, the modern-day equivalent of standing, 2,000 years ago, on the Capitoline Hill in Imperial Rome and looking down the Forum to the Coliseum.

It is hard to imagine that behind the marble splendour of the Washington of 1998 lies another city which the tourist and many of the better-off residents may never see. This is the city with a majority black population many of who live in near-poverty in areas racked by drugs and crime. The national Children's Rights Council has ranked Washington at the bottom, behind the 50 states, for the welfare of children. The Washington Post reported that the incidence of Aids is nine times higher than the national average and that of TB 50 per cent higher than in any state. Washington residents are seven times more likely to be murdered than the average American.

These depressing statistics are derived mainly from three of the geographical segments that make up the District, as it is called. This is why residents as well as visitors are advised to stick to NW at night. That means north-west Washington where the tourist sites, the offices, the restaurants, Georgetown and the embassies are. Washington is in the middle of a mayoral election which will see a replacement for the controversial Marion Barry. He has been mayor for most of the past 20 years, with an interruption to serve a prison sentence for cocaine possession. But this did not prevent him being re-elected again and again. If he had not decided to retire this time, he was fairly certain of a fifth term. Barry, who was a young civil rights activists alongside Martin Luther King in the 1960s, is now much blamed for the deterioration in the capital's schools, roads, policing and public facilities which have sent many of the middle classes fleeing to affluent suburbs. Naturally all the candidates to replace him are promising big improvements but so far it is a pretty dead campaign. One candidate, a restaurant owner called Jeffrey Gildenhorn, is proposing that the city should licence brothels and is calling for a "hamburger college" where inner-city young people can learn the fast food business. But he has no hope of being elected.

Much of the trouble stems from the capital's odd status. The District of Columbia, which is what the DC stands for, is federal territory largely governed by the US Congress and denied the autonomy of the 50 states. (There is a Washington state but it is on the Pacific coast). The capital's local council has little real power and too little income because the big government buildings and embassies which fill the richer areas do not pay property taxes.

One area where Washington is efficient in raising income is in ticketing cars for parking offences. Usually, the traffic wardens swoop within minutes and towing can follow soon afterwards. The horror stories are legion - such as the man who decided it was not worth reclaiming his motor bike and paying the fines and 18 months later was billed for almost $3000 in storage fees. Yes, you are better off walking around Washington and the taxis are a fixed $5 in the city centre area when the heat becomes too much.