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Published: September 27th 2009
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Old South Meeting House
The meeting place for the famous speech made by Samuel Adams that created both The Boston Massacre and The Boston Tea Party. Friday September 25th 2009
The one thing that Boston is probably more famous for than anything else is 'The Freedom Trail', a cradle of liberty if you will and a route that takes visitors through the entire heart of the city via a red brick line that stretches for 2.5 miles. Along the route, you'll discover everything about Boston and the events that occurred 230 years ago that make this a place that is full of American tourists who are looking to find out about their own heritage, as well as international’s seeking some understanding of the American way. I would hazard a guess that had World War one and two not taken place, then this would feature heavily in our school’s curriculum such is the relevance of the British Empire (New England) on these shores.
The real joy with Boston is that everything is quite slow, there's no real rush and everything is quite chilled out and relaxed. The city is small, not tiny but not massive and so Kay and I decided early on this week that wouldn't bother to use the subway's at all and instead would walk everywhere.
The two joys of this are
Freedom Trail Point
One of 17 points along the 2.5 mile walk governing Boston's famous past. A red road of bricks marks the entire route. simple:
• We get to see parts of the city that we wouldn't otherwise see.
• We can burn off some of the calories from the humongous portions of food that are served!
After a lazy morning and the sun beating down, we headed out from the hotel to start our walk making the brief walk to Boston Common where most tours head out from. Due to Boston's status as a prominent tourist destination there are numerous varieties of tours you can do, some taking 5 hours via foot with narrators dressed up as their 18th century ancestors, others for less than an hour on Segway motorised buggy’s!! We decided against both, and armed with only a guide book in hand we headed out by ourselves as to allow us some freedom to roam on 'The Freedom Trail'.
Though I won't bore you with all the details and various landmarks we visited, the photo's will hopefully give you a quick reference guide as to the various sites that we witnessed. The tour takes you through lush wild parks, straight into the heart of the city and then out to the Northside that is notorious due to its
King's Chapel
A stunning looking building that was initially built in wood, and slowly replaced over time with stone. This was building was used by the King's men who occupied Boston to enforce British law. largely Italian heritage and inhabitants. Even though skyscrapers don the skyline and clearly times have changed, the tour does give you a real sense of what happened and there is enough original features along the route that allows you to feel the history that you are literally walking through.
Going back to a point earlier on that I raised, in that in essence the joy of Boston is the ability to walk off all the extra calories that you eat during your stay on any holiday and having completed our first mile or so, we felt quite pleased with our efforts until we discovered Mike's pastry in the North end of the city. If like Kay and I are, you are prone to having a sweet tooth then this is the place for you - at the same time it should be noted that there is an all female gym nearby that sits on top of a Dunkin Donuts with the smell of sweet pastry being fed in whilst women don the treadmills - I can't imagine the success ratio being too great!
As you can see by the picture, the cakes and in particular the Cannoli were
Cannoli
Swett italian pastry stuffed with cream and chocolate chips. Almost definitely your daily allowance of calories and fat but unbelieveably good! to die for and having skipped breakfast and 3pm fast approaching we gouged out on the fabulous pastry in the blazing sun! Feeling guilty we carried on walking further North than we had in our entire stay so far, heading up into the area known as Charlestown visiting the USS Constitution and where the Bunker Hill Monument dominates the sky. We took in our local surroundings, and having completed our trek we decided to head back through Paul Revere Park stopping to look as some of the trees started to show signs of Fall, the colours turning into glorious oranges and Reds that in contrast to previous years should have happened nearly three weeks ago.
After a heavy day of walking we made our way back through the city, before returning home to freshen up before dinner. Having enjoyed fine cuisine the previous night we felt we should return to our usual ways so headed out from the Hotel to find the most local 'American Diner' we could come across and we found ourselves within thirty minutes eating Turkey Club Sandwiches and Cheeseburgers being washed down with some Bud Light and then a short walk home via a Starbucks
Bud me up!
You've got to love the 22 fl. oz glasses filled with Bud light. and the loca conveneince store for a mdnight Ice-Cream Cookie Sandwich to cap off yet another fabulous day!
I'll be honest in that I have been fortunate to travel quite well, not comprehensively by any stretch of the imagination but I have enjoyed my time in Boston so much I would be quite happy staying here. It really is the best of both worlds, and has easily exceeded my already high expectations and hopes.
Nic and Kay x
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Jon
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U said no to a segway tour?!?!?!
I love the whole 'we're gonna walk everywhere' thing - it's nice, you get to see more of the city, and you can eat more during the day which is always good (nice pics of the food BTW. Loving the Cannoli - never heard of it, but will be googling that little gem later - and 22 fl oz of beer??? Brilliant!). But how could you turn down a tour of the city on a segway?!?!? - that sounds like possibly the best thing ever! EVER!!