Blogs from Salem, Massachusetts, United States, North America - page 2

On Saturday the 24th of August, Sally and I took a day trip with friends to the town of Salem Massachusetts. Sally kept saying that we were going to find us a witch. Salem was a town we had read about but with it being so near it sounded like it would be an interesting day trip. One of the first sights that we saw in Salem was the House of the Seven Gables. The house was built in 1668 by Captain John Turner and was the inspiration for the book of the same name by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Right next door is the birthplace of Hawthorne built about 1750 and relocation to the site of the House of the Seven Gables in 1958. We also visited 'The Burying Point' which is the oldest cemetery in Salem ... read more

Saturday is another sunny morning. We are continuing to head “Down East”. Today, we are going to Salem, located on what is known as “Boston’s North Shore”. We head due North past the imposing Minots Ledge Lighthouse and then out across Massachusetts Bay. Boston is to our West about 15 miles away, shrouded in light mist. From a distance, the two massive chimneys of the Salem power station provide a good point to aim for. But this is not a good navigation strategy when you get close to shore because the direct route goes through, or over the top of, Marblehead Neck ... :-) The waters outside Salem Harbor are littered with small islands and large rocks. There are so many different channels and channel markers that it is quite confusing, even with GPS and good ... read more

Geo: 42.5224, -70.8958First priority next day was to get Peter's phone equipped with a USA simcard to avoid paying O2 £6 a megabyte for data, sounds simple but involved long phone calls and a trip to a T-Mobile store. Following which we set off for Fenway Park (the Boston RedSox venue) to make a start on Barny's shopping list - only to start off in the wrong direction resulting in a ride on the Metro (T) to get back to where we needed to be. Then we walked further to get a bite to eat at the cafe in the Isabella Gardner Museum but then, daunted at the prospect of paying $15 ($10) each to get in we crossed to the Fine Art Museum where Annies membership card got us in free. Principal interest was the ... read more

We're going to upload this blog from yesterday now but add the pictures later or tomorrow at some point. We are in New York now but the internet here is a bit questionable, so we will write/upload today's events later too . This is what we wrote yesterday but have only just had chance to upload: Today, we woke up relatively early at around 8am, as we had planned a trip to the town of Salem. We put on some clothes and went down for breakfast before going back to the room to get ready properly. We checked online for the best/cheapest way to get to Salem, and noticed that there was a bus that went there from Haymarket station, which would be much cheaper than taking a train there. After checking bus times, we set ... read more

Today was the last day of our New England trip. We left Boothbay Harbor early to ensure we would be able to fit in a stop in Salem to visit some of the witch related attractions. There definitely was not enough time spent here in Maine to fully appreciate it all. In all, we were probably only in the state less than 24 hours! Before leaving, we stopped by the harbor to take a few photos but the bone chilling cold of the morning forced the stop to be a rather quick one. Driving down the Maine turnpike and into New Hampshire, we finally arrived in Salem, Massachusetts around 11. We parked our car in a parking garage and started walking to find the Salem Witch Museum. After looking at a map, I saw that we ... read more