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Published: October 3rd 2011
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Alex gave us a lift to the coach station again where we boarded our coach to Boston! Was a relatively short journey and when we arrived we had to get a subway then a bus to our hostel. We had tried to get some couchsurfing in Boston but after applying to about 10 people with no luck, we needed a hostel and therefore booked the only one available which was a bit out of downtown. Apparently September is one of the busiest months in Boston, with Labour Day weekend and all the college students returning so the HI hostel and a few others in the centre were all booked up. After reading reviews about how far out this hostel was, we were happily suprised with the short 10 minute subway ride from downtown followed by a 5 min bus ride or 15 min walk. The hostel also offered free shuttles to and from the subway station in the mornings and evenings, so getting to downtown was not a problem. We arrived and checked in and headed straight back out to have a walk around!
We got the various modes of transport straight back into the centre and headed for Boston
Common. We walked around for a few hours - down Boston Common, through the main shopping area and up to Quincy Market (which is a bit like Covent Garden) for some food and we were very happy to find a Wagamamas. We then headed back to the hostel to relax for the evening. The hostel itself was quite nice - with a common room in the front and a games/TV room in the back past the rooms. Wifi is a very useful thing to have but it seems to kill hostels a bit as everyone in the common room was sat on their laptops - very anti-social! We have met a few other people who have also commented on this fact.
The next morning we headed over to the Harvard area and luckily a free guided tour was just starting when we arrived. The tours are free (but you need to tip, of course) and are run by current students. It was a very good and funny tour! Was really interesting to see Harvard, and the mix of tourists and actual students is quite amusing. We then went to Wagamamas again for lunch (only Wagamamas in the whole of
the US, so needed to make the most of it). We then headed over to the Aquarium and bought our CityPass ticket for the week (aquarium, natural history museum, prudential center skywalk, museum of fine arts & science museum for half the price it would all be together) and spent the afternoon there. It was very busy - last day of school holidays! But still really good, I don't think either of us would disappointed by an aquarium. We then headed back to Quincy market and went to a pub for a drink (just one sadly as our budget doesn't really allow us to drink!!) and we then had dinner at Subway (Subway does need a mention - as a footlong sub is only $5 we can have dinner for $2.50 each when we need to be cheap, bargain) and headed back to the hostel for the evening.
The next day, we spent the morning at the Harvard Museum of Natural history which was small but still good nonetheless and then headed to Chinatown for lunch. It was quite rainy so we spent the afternoon walking around, discovering Boston a bit more and people watched. Boston is a very
walkable city - everything is within walking distance and therefore we walked a lot here! It is a very pretty city with stunning architecture.
The next day we headed to Boston's italian North end to a pizza place recommended by a friend from work and a few other people along our travels. It claims to be world famous and have the best pizza in the world. Ruth had said that the service was awful and after I checked it out on trip advisor I found lots of reviews detailing the terrible service. Obviously we had to see for ourselves so we went for lunch. After expecting the worst we had perfectly lovely service and the pizza was very,very good. So all in all not bad!! In very heavy rain we then walked to the science museum (typically heading the wrong way first so got even more soaked) which was really good. We do seem to be museum people, as they all do not disappoint. There was a very cool indoor lightning display and we spent a good few hours looking around all the exhibits.
The next day we spent the whole day at the Museum of Fine Arts.
This is a massive grand building, but very modern inside and we both loved it. We spent the whole day here and had lunch at the cafe. The museum also put on free tours so we went to about three of those so we could find out more about the art. The first one was called "3 masterpieces in 30 minutes" and instead of the tour guide telling us all about them (which is what we thought it would be) it was more a group exercise where we had to all say what we though. So with 4 other older couples, we spent half an hour pretending to be art experts. We then walked all the way back to Boston Common and headed back to the hostel for evening. To our delight we actually found some people willing to be social and therefore spent the evening in the hostel games room playing cards and drinking with two South African guys and two English guys.
By this time we had decided to book a few more days in Boston (in total we were there 8) as we knew we needed to be in NYC by 14th Sept but also had
planned to stay with my friend Emma in Long Island for a few nights first. It made sense to go to Emma's via New York on Monday 12th as neither of us really wanted to go on September 11th! We were happy to spend a long time in Boston as there is a lot to do and we both really liked the city.
The next day we headed to the Prudential Centre which has an observation deck on the 50th floor called the "Skywalk". After my CN tower incident I was feeling a bit apprehensive, especially after the lift seemed to stop half way up then suddenly fall one floor (causing one girl in the lift to scream - it was a bit scary!!) but then safely headed up to the top. When we got to the top I was surprisingly calm and mananged to stay up for a while. The platform was all the way round therefore giving a 360 degree beautiful view of Boston. Also included was a brilliant audio guide telling you about all the buildings you could see at each point. It was really good, and Boston looked amazing. My new camera has a "tilt-shift"
setting built in and therefore I had a lot of fun taking pictures of "miniature Boston". We then spent the rest of the afternoon doing the Freedom Trail, which is a free wallking trail highlighting all the buildings and important aspects of the American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party and included a free tour.
The next day we headed to Salem for the day. It was only half an hour away by cheap train and thought we might as well go as we were close! It is an odd town - a small american town filled with everything witchy - from tacky to tasteful and almost clinging on to its history for tourism. There were lots of witch, pagan etc themed shops and we also went to the Salem Witch Museum which was mostly a mini dramatised theatrical show of what happened with the witch trials. Nonetheless it was very interesting and after grabbing some lunch and looking around a few more shops we headed back.
On our last day we headed to the "Back Bay" area which is just south of downtown and full of little boutiques and cafes, quite trendy but with lots of little
churches and skyscrapers, generally an awesome part of Boston. We spent most of the day walking around! Had a hot dog at a diner and found a guitar shop. Also walked around Fenway Park and the surrounding area.
The next day we packed up and headed to Boston South Station where we boarded our bus to New York City!
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chris Evans
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so you are alive!!
Just caught up with all your travels. You certainly saw everything in Boston and by the sound of things both of you will be needing new leather for the soles of your shoes. How are the feet by the way Beth. I am on my way to the UK on Monday so will kiss the ground for you although it does not sound like you are missing it at all Cheers and keep safe Chris a