Sorry, I was referring to the previous commenter's list of suburbs, like Pentagon City, Clarendon, Rosslyn, Tysons, Reston, Herndon, etc. in that corridor out to Dulles.

(Downtown) Alexandria is lovely. Manassas and Fredericksburg (VA), and Frederick (MD), are very distinct from DC and the DMV suburbs, though—to me they feel much more like separate cities/towns in Virginia and Maryland (with all that Civil War history you're referring to).