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Published: September 24th 2009
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Christian Science Centre
A fantastic building that has a very similar resemblance to a certain St. Pauls Cathedral. Wednesday September 23rd 2009
If the sound of riding the streets of Boston on a Trolley Bus tour sounds like an easy and not too exhausting thing to do - think again!! Its bloody tiring but very much worth it!
Another lazy morning with Blueberry Muffins and Orange Juice in the hotel before we headed over to Boston Common to catch the 9am Trolley Bus that takes you on a 2 hour tour of the whole city of Boston, stopping at 17 different locations with a narration of all the fascinating landmarks and history that make Boston the city it is. As we travelled through the city, we found out some amazing stuff - Boston's heritage is old and steep in history regarding the founding Fathers but the city in its current state is actually quite new with a great deal of it built upon swamp land and land fill over the past 30 years. The best bit, was that we travelled the entire tour once - learning the places we wanted to explore further, and then going back in and stopping at various locations to really give us a feel of Boston.
We started our tour in
Outside Fenway Park
The home of the Boston Red Sox! the downtown area of the city going through various brownstone apartments and public gardens before arriving into the Back Bay area of the city going through the many big brand hotels that fill the city. Alongside these sits the quite impressive looking Christian Science Plaza. From here the bus started to head out of the City and towards the suburb’s and in particular Fenway park - the home of the famous Boston Red Sox!! We got off the bus, and had a look around and whilst there we watched as Ben Affleck directed his latest movie which is set on the back drop of the stadium and by the looks of things - a lot of SWAT and FBI police officers involved in a big shootout! It is called 'The Town' and is due out in September 2010. We walked around the stadium and nipped inside the bar that forms part of the stadium and got a great view in a stadium that is tiny by most modern comparisons and is soon heading towards its 100th century.
We headed back on the bus and crossed over Harvard Bridge to the other side of the river to 'Student-World' that comprises
Inside Fenway Park
Inside the famous stadium that is nearly 100 years old. of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Harvard grads. By all accounts, it is amazing how these guys afford it and find time for social activities as they are paying over $45,000 a year and are pretty much in their classroom from 9am until 8pm! It makes our university years seem even more of an easy life.
Cambridge is a very quiet area of the city, despite the high student presence but this may have something to do with the average cost of a brownstone apartment in this area. A modest 6 bedroom, 3 bathroom place will cost you a very reasonable $19 million, with your parking space outside your new pad a cool $300,000 - that costs more than our house just for a 6ft by 3ft parking space!!!! The bus weaved in and out of the Vassar and Main street that houses the big lecture halls of MIT before heading back over Longfellow bridge giving us a gorgeous view of Boston from the other side of the river.
The next major stop was the just as affluent area of Beacon Hill - think Chelsea and Knightsbridge crossed with Henley-Upon-Thames. Very Twee and full of 'antique stuff'.
Cakes
These really were as good as they look I'll be honest, most of it was arty farty crap but if you like that type of thing...….
One thing that you can't complain about in the whole of Boston, and in particular Beacon Hill is the amount of cake shops and so we stopped off the bus to grab ourselves a bite to eat for lunch. I ended up going for an unbelievably chocolate cupcake whilst Kay had a Fruit Tart - see the pictures, big and very yummy. We carried on walking for a while, grabbing a massive slice of pizza a little later on in the Italian part of the city, the dough being made freshly in front of us and it tasted amazing. We continued to walk around Beacon Hill before moving back into Boston Common, making our way up towards the State House, a monumental building that stands out in the city due to the amazing gold dome that sits on top.
We hopped back onto the bus, taking us through downtown Boston going through areas of the Freedom trail (which we are going to walk on Friday) and touring along the whole of the harbour side of Boston, travelling through North
Revere Street
The street sign that bears the name of the famous American Paul Revere who's influence on Boston is immense. End and going up towards Charlestown, before heading back into the City and then heading down to the Seaport of the district where the Boston Tea Ship and the Boston Fish Pier proudly sit at the East side of the Harbour opening up towards the Atlantic ocean with Cape Cod visible in the distance. The bus weaved back into the city, and all this travelling and walking had built us up a thirst so we did what anybody else would do - we went to Cheers bar!!
Cheers of course is infamous from the famous US program from the 1980's that bears the same name, and we sat enjoying draught Bud and show themed cocktails in the bar with the theme tune ringing in our ears every so often. Our day had flown by, so we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before heading out for the evening. Our hotel is quite central to the majority of Boston with major landmarks less then a block away, so headed to take a further look at Trinity Church, Hancock Tower and Boston Public Library - three buildings that all share the same courtyard and are each individually amazing pieces
Pizza
Very big and very yummy!! of architecture. Our intention for the evening was to head towards the MFA (Massachusetts Museum of Fine Art) and we stumbled upon a rickshaw bike, with a great rider/driver called Dan who beat all the rush hour traffic to take us out the west side of town to the museum which is free of charge on Wednesday evenings.
We arrived with small expectations of what we may see, but left absolutely blown away having seen original painting by Monet, Matisse, Constable, Van Gogh and Pollock (see the pictures) to name but a few. It really was a pleasure to see such great work up so close. We spent a few hours in the museum, before slowly making our way back to the hotel through the beautifully lit evening skyline of Boston, stopping for a bite to eat before heading back with aching feet but both of us agreeing how much we are loving this amazing city and already having spent a few days in its presence I would recommend it to anyone, for either a short stay or an extended one. It really is an amazing place that we have yet to truly discover, but we are thoroughly looking
Beacon Hill
A typical Brownstone street in the leafy suburb. forward to our day tomorrow as we head to the New England Aquarium where will encounter Myrtle the Turtle!!
Until then, over and out.
Nic and Kay xx
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