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Published: July 20th 2020
Fenway Park
Love this picture!Boston is one of our favorite cities. We might be a little bias because we love the Boston Red Sox. As with a lot of other places we do not make it up there enough. Since we moved to the east coast, we have made random little trips (mostly day trips or overnight-trips), but never enough to really, truly see and appreciate the city.
FENWAY PARK is and will always be the number 1 destination for us in Boston. I love this place. About 7 months after Everest was born we made the trek up for a game (we have not been there since so definite parenting fail). Old, historical, oozing with tradition, closed-off streets, red and blue, small creaky seats, seats behind pillars, etc. Not much has changed since this place was built more than a hundred years ago and that makes it extra special. The place is magical. Because of my company we got some really good seats and I got to walk around with my little guy in his Red Sox cap with him smiling ear to ear. A memorable day.
When you visit Boston Italian food should generally be one of the highest items on
Boston
Always a parade/ festival/ some march your priority list and if it is not then you should revisit your list. Now when you hear this you might say - did you say Italian? Yeah this place has a pretty active Italian neighborhood where it seems there is a festival every weekend of the year. When we went with my in-laws, we did a late afternoon lunch/ early evening dinner at
Cantina Italiana. A nice big Caesar salad to share (good), some Fusilli alla Boscaiola (crumbled sweet sausage w/ wild mixed mushrooms and sweet peas w/ an oven-roasted tomato cream sauce w/ hand-made fusilli, sprinkled with shaved parmigiano) - a total mouth full but man it was good and some spaghetti alle Vongole (littleneck clams w/ olive oil, garlic and parsley served with a white wine sauce) (really good), washed down with some good wine. Overall a really good meal. Can't go wrong here.
For as long as we have driven up to Boston, we have always walked by
PIZZERIA REGINA and the line always stretches around the corner. They do have several locations, but for me it is always important to eat at the original (call it what you want but it is just something I believe
Boston
Granary burying ground in). So we always just keep going because why would we wait with all the other good restaurants in the area. During this one particular visit we were visiting some friends and we bit the bullet and decided to wait. We got in after about an hour and it surely did not disappoint. PIZZERIA REGINA FOR SAUSAGE PIZZA was a must so we ordered the sausage cacciatore pizza (sliced sausage links, mushrooms, roasted onions and peppers with fresh parsley over their own marinara sauce with Pecorino Romano and Mozzarella). This was one of our pies. I mean you really can't go wrong with any of the pizzas. In addition to the sausage pizza we also got a classico pizza (tomato sauce, pepperoni, artichoke hearts, fresh mushrooms, Mozzarella and Parmesan cheese), a rosemary ham bianco (roasted pineapple, fresh spinach, Rosemary ham, fresh basil, Parmesan, Mozzarella cheese and Regina’s garlic sauce), and a fiore pomodoro pizza (Regina’s red sauce pizza with fresh basil and sliced tomatoes, topped with Fior Di Latte Mozzarella and garnished with extra virgin olive oil). They are not the biggest of pizzas but 4 pizzas were enough for 6 adults. Beers and some obligatory Regina sodas rounded out
Granary burying ground
Mr Revere's final resting place the meal. You are packed in pretty tight, but it is just part of the experience.
Well you have to get rid of all these calories somehow and Boston is a pretty good city for this. One of my biggest regrets to date is that we have not taken the time to take in this historical city and all of which it has to offer. The
freedom trail is a must with all its stops of historically significant places in US history. We made a stop at the
PARK STREET CHURCH which at some point was the tallest building in the US and also the sight of one of the first major speeches against slavery. A beautiful building and sanctuary and a church that still does some awesome things after all these years. Right next to the church is the
GRANARY BURYING GROUND with some pretty famous and significant "residents". These graves include the
SAMUEL ADAMS GRAVE and the
JOHN HANCOCK GRAVE (two of the gentlemen who signed the declaration of independence and the two I recognized). The site is also the final resting for a 3rd member of the signing group but can't tell you who he is (I am not one to go by
Granary burying ground
Sam Adams - other guy I know who signed the declaration of independence on these matters as I was not born in this country). Other than these you will find a mix of people from every walk of life from the
PAUL REVERE GRAVE (fairly famous all over Boston so look him up) to the
MARY GOOSE GRAVE (original Mother Goose). It's fun walking around and trying to find the grave sites as some of these are pretty hard to find as the engraving has worn away over the centuries. And shamefully that is all we have really covered of the Freedom trail - we will try and do better next time.
As far as accommodation goes, we generally stay outside Boston in the suburbs (15 - 20 minutes away) which is way cheaper than anything decent you can find in Boston itself. We generally just pick the closest and cheapest Marriott.
Recently we explored the mystical world of the
Berkshires. On the western side of Massachusetts it is only a 2-hour drive from us and in our 10 years in the area we have never been. I was in the middle of busy season and just needed to get away so we did an overnight trip. The drive was beautiful through the
Boston
Hanging out with the grandpas backcountry with snow-covered trees and frozen lakes. We ended up getting a nice room at the
CRANWELL SPA AND RESORT for really cheap. The Berkshires is kind of like the "inland-Newport" where all the old money built huge summer mansions to escape the heat and over time these mansions have been converted to hotel properties. This is one of then. Unfortunately, there was a ton of construction going on so a lot of things were closed. We got to take a quick glance at the MANSION @ CRANWELL FOR ARCHITECTURE because it is a beautiful building with some incredible interior carvings and decorations. The room was in one of the annexes and had all the bells and whistles you could hope for so we were happy.
We got there fairly late, so we just changed and asked for some recommendations for dinner.
Frankie's Ristorante came highly recommended for fresh home-made pasta so we figured you can't really go wrong with that. I had some cider and Nikkie had a couple martinis and wine. Nikkie went with the butternut squash ravioli (she is definitely a sucker for this dish whenever it is on a menu) and I did the catch of the day which
Boston
Raising him right from the start consisted of tons of butter underneath a ball of spaghetti surrounded by seafood - a really good dish. We finished it off with a good creme brulee. A very unexpected good meal. Always nice to find these diamonds in the rough. The next morning we went to the
Haven Cafe and Bakery where we did the obligatory latte and coffee along with some pancakes (good), egg/ home fries/ salad (good) and french toast (this was awesome and was more like a bread - super thick and delicious). We figured we needed to get those calories in because we were going to take Everest tubing. We ended up at the
Bousquet Mountain for tubing. For $40 we got a couple hours. I did not grow up with snow and Everest was barely legal to go down so this was a first for both of us. We had a blast going down and dragging the tubes up and going down again and again (not too much dragging as they had a belt that took you up. Everest got braver and braver as we kept making runs and did a couple runs with me not holding on to him. We even got Nikkie involved (also a tubing
Boston
This was pre-Everest virgin). A fun little afternoon before we had to head back again.
Good - there just always seems like a ton to do in Boston
- there is always some sort of festival/ parade/ carnival/ celebration/ street fair going on
- we definitely had fun driving around the backroads of Connecticut/ Massachusetts and it is fun exploring these roads
Bad - can't say there really is anything bad honestly. It sucked that the Cranwell was going through construction (if I have to try and find something)
Advice - definitely do the trails in Boston - there are plenty
- if you are a baseball fan then Fenway Park is a must (even if you are a hated Yankee fan). Go for the history. It's an experience.
And that's Massachusetts. Crazy to think but with all the trips we did not cross off anything. So still 333 down and 5,448 to go
Til next time from the codfish state
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