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Published: August 20th 2006
Cool buildings
As seen on the Freedom trail. This was in the Italian quarterI last left you guys with me arriving in Boston after a rather gruelling 32 hours of flight. Spent the rest of the week working pretty much all day and all night, although the work was punctuated with lots of food and fun as well!! Still - was missing my girl, and getting far too many late nights, and it was all a bit too much - so when the weekend came up, I turned down all the kind offers for entertainment and opted to go check out Boston on my own!!
So let me tell you a bit about Boston. It's renowned for being a gorgeous city to visit; on account of its great architecture and history. Since its founding, Boston quickly became an intellectual and education centre, with the arrival of noted theologians and statesmen. The world-famous Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were also founded here. It was at its prime the leading commercial center of the American colonies (we're talking 17th century here!) due to its excellent harbour.
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) Boston also became the centre for revolution against the British. When Britain continued to raise taxes to replenish its treasury,
Skyline
Seen from MIT Boston got fed up and eventually revolted, leading to the famous Boston Tea Party (basically they refused to pay taxes on tea, and so they tipped out all the tea from the ships into the water, which in my books is a far better thing to do with tea anyway!!) The famous 'shot that was heard around the world' also happened here, when the American Revolution began.
So you see, Boston not only had cool buildings to appreciate, it also had a rich history. However, I tend to be more interested in ancient history, and America's relatively recent history (400 years - hah!!) didn't interest me too much, so I wasn't expecting to be wowed too much.
Ok, on to the trip. Compared to my last world trip, this one was going to be a lot easier.
- To start with, I had a car! With GPS! No chance of getting lost right?
- This was America! Everyone spoke English, and if I got lost no probs right?
This was the first time I had a rental car with GPS. Bernice, as I christened my GPS, or rather the female voice in the GPS, was
a charm to be with, and by far the most useful and pleasant female companion I have EVER had in my car
when it comes to getting useful directions . (I stress the latter part of that sentence as I am very aware that my wife, mum, mum-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, several female friends are all reading this!) Anyway, Bernice, with a voice like golden syrup (yes, thick and gluggy), would gently remind me to turn left at the next intersection, and when I failed to obey her well-intentioned suggestions, she did not panic or get upset, but rather would quickly re-calculate a new route and get me back on the track! Perfect!! Every guy's perfect fantasy driving partner... errm... for getting directions, that is!! 😊
So far driving in the US had been a breeze. I had gotten used to driving on the wrong side of the road (yes, sorry all you Americans, French, Tunisians, Chinese, Rwandans, etc - it IS the wrong side) - only once did I drive down the wrong side of the road; thankfully it was in a low-speed zone and everyone was very patient as I did a 3 point turn on the
highway and headed in the right direction again!!
Bernice of course kept her head and did not lose her calm. 😊 She just said 'please make a legal U-turn...' What a woman.
So I set off at 6am on saturday morning to see as much of Boston as I possibly could in two days. Day 1 - in the morning I was going to do the so-called 'freedom trail' - which is this mammoth walking tour of Boston that takes you through much of its historical areas, including some buildings that had special signicance to the American Revolution. Also boring things like 'so-and-so's house' and so forth. I was then going to head into some of the nicer suburbs and check out how the rich folk lived, followed by some of the inner west areas where the Boston Library, Trinity Church, etc and of course Newbury St were. More on all these later. Day 2 was going to be visiting Harvard uni and MIT, and then a plane out to New Jersey late that afternoon.
So I found myself a park at a convenient subway station, changed into my travelling gear and hopped onto the 'T' (that's
what they call the subway in Boston). I was relieved to be wearing my travelling gear again after spendng the whole week in business garb!! I had resurrected my brown 3/4 length pants from last year's trip (they were horribly faded after the last trip, and Catherine thought I had thrown it out, but hey, I had saved it up for my next trip!!), donned my brown Havanas (also refugees from last year's trip), and headed out for my walk!! As a concession I had a new t-shirt, so I'm not completely a grub.
Another shock. After a week of leaving at 7am, living in the office all day, and heading home late, effectively living in an air-conditioned bubble all day, I discovered that Boston was going through a heat wave!! Temperatures up around 35 degrees!! And fool me was going to walk! Aargh. Those who know me (or who read our blogs) know that I am not one who relishes lots of arduous physical activity, and suddenly the idea of doing a 3 hour walk in the hot sun was starting to look like a very poor one!
Thankfully I hooked up with another tourist on the
'T', and convinced him that he should do the walk with me! So suddenly my hard slog turned into a social event. We actually ended up meeting lots of other tourists, so halfway through the walk, we had six of us all enjoying the walk together!!I think we saw some buildings, and quite a few monuments, but it's all a vague blur, I was having so much fun just chatting with people!!
Actually I wasn't that bad. I got to see a lot of the sites, and since I wasn't too interested in the more esoteric ones (I mean, who cares that this was the house where Paul Revere lived, it's just a house blah...), I also managed to have fun with the folk at the same time!
The Boston Freedom trail is actually a great way to see the city. It goes for about 3 miles, and takes you through sixteen historic sites. On the way, you get to walk through some older parts of the city, the CBD itself, some park areas, culminating in the Navy docks (federal area, no weapons allowed doh!). Lots of pretty churches, some gorgeous old buildings, and a very interesting mixture
Inside Boston Library
The library was cool!! Really nice inside, a bit dark so a lot of my photos didn't work out!! Basically needed my tripod, but who takes a tripod to a library??? of the old and the new. The trail is quite easy to follow, as Boston maintains a red line along the entire trail, so you can just follow it and you can't get lost! Most of the time anyway. You can see some of the pics scattered through this blog.
Note to future travellers to Boston - you should stop before crossing the bridge to the docks. In my opinion, this last leg is a lot of walking to see a small number of rather unimpressive sites.
After the trail, I ditched the rest of the guys, and headed out to see the richer areas. I forget the suburb, but its where the Massachusetts State House and the Boston Commons are - anyway, was very wowed by the gorgeous houses out there, even more wowed by the price of the apartments! Befriended a street cleaner called Tuan, who gave me a mini tour of the area. Cute (the suburb, not Tuan). See the pics for yourself.
After that I went out to see the Trinity Church, which is apparently (according to my lonely planet) one of the top 10 favourite sites for Americans to visit. As far
as churches go, I've seen better in Europe, but it was ok I guess. More impressive was Hancock tower, next to it, which was completely made up of mirrors, and made for some really interesting photos as it reflected other buildings around it as well as the sky!
Spent the afternoon in Newbury Street, which was meant to be modeled on Paris, with really wide colonnades, and cute boutique shops on both sides. It was actually quite fun, and I didn't buy a thing (Everything so expensive!) - but I did meet lots of people!! Americans are really friendly. Every time I pulled out my lonely planet, I had some American offer to help me out, and the really nice thing is that they weren't lousy touts trying to sell me something. Refreshing. Spent a good two hours at a cafe with a book, and actually ended up befriending the waiters, and went out to dinner with a few of them after work!
So you see, I did manage to have myself a good time in Boston. It was a bit strange not having my girl with me, as she's my favourite traveling buddy. But all the other
Trinity Churc
Note the tower next to it - Hancock tower - see the reflection of the church in it? tourists and locals were a reasonable second best, and I did have lots of fun!! It's quite a gorgeoous city as I was expecting, and certainly one that I would consider living in if I had to!! (Next best to NY as far as American cities go)
Stay tuned for more. I'm going to be in New Jersey for a couple of days, then Denver, not sure if I'll write. Probably next I'll write from London!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Ah yes, the famous John Hancock tower
In the old days, you didn't get too close to it on a windy day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hancock_Tower#Falling_glass_panes I loved the night time photo of Fannuel Hall - did you go inside?