If you are looking for history, urban walking and beautiful buildings and scenery head to Boston, Massachusetts.
We started our trip with a city walk using the Freedom Trail. This is a 4km trail that conveniently lays out the historical sites in the city. 4km may not seem like a huge undertaking, but let me assure you that this adventure will take all day, so wear good shoes. I am the furthest thing from a history buff and obviously had no idea what I was getting into when I went to Boston. Did you know Boston is known as the place of the birth of America? Well I didn’t, now I do! Oh the things we learn when we travel.
*You will see this is a common theme in our travels. Jeff and I both learn new things on every trip we take. However, I think I come away with the most new knowledge. At the very least when I come home from a trip I at least know where the location we visited is actually located. I am pretty good with directions, but terrrrrible at geography. Anywho...back to Boston.
Having the guide meant that Jeff could, mostly, enjoy the tour without having to teach me along the way. Which I am sure he appreciated. Highlights of the tour include the Paul Revere House, your standard left the way he lived in it, old building; Granary Burial Ground, where lots of important people from history are resting such as; Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Ben Franklin; you get the idea; Old State House, site of the Boston Massacre; and you end at Bunker Hill Memorial.
This tour is a great way to see the historical sites but to also get a lay of the land. We also visited the USS Constitution and the adjoining museum, then took a break from history to take a quick boat ride back to the other side of the city for drinks and of course Lobster. When it was raining I dried my boots under the hand dryer at Cheers. You know the bar that inspired the hit TV show? Yep, it’s in Boston and a fun place to pretend everyone knows your name :)
The only thing I really knew about Boston before was that it was the home of Harvard University. Who didn’t want to get into Harvard…#whatlikeitshard. We set a whole day aside to visit the Harvard campus and I must say I was thoroughly underwhelmed. Yes the campus is beautiful, old trees and large greens to study away in. However, there was less New England architecture than I imagined, and an overall lack of Ivy feeling to the campus. To be honest, my Guelph campus was probably nicer. I will admit though, the student lounge there takes the cake over any of the Universities I have attended. When you walk in you smell leather, not deep fried food. Also FYI you cannot visit the Law Library, we tried, you need a pass card and the students won’t let you borrow theirs.
MIT on the other hand was interesting because it looks exactly like every high school I have ever been in. Knock me out and put me in the halls of MIT and I could just as easily be in the
halls of CHSS.
Other highlights of Boston are that you can walk a lot and there are just things to see. Nothing in particular but a stroll along the harbour is delightful.
They also have a pretty good Aquarium, where we saw a little boy and a seal playing tag. It looked fun and surprisingly killed the time while it continued to rain.
We stayed a train ride away from the city, closer to where Harvard is located, in a B&B. It was a nice little subsection of the city that was quiet and had lots of restaurants and students around. We walked back to the B&B one day and saw the arena where the Bruins play, but that was pretty much the extent of our sports sightseeing.
To finish off this New England adventure we road tripped up the Cape. It was not the scenic drive we were expecting, you cannot see the waterfront at all during the drive. We ventured to Martha’s Vineyard to vacay with the Obama’s. (They happened to be there at the same time, so it counts even though we didn’t actually see them). This day trip was not worth it, I mean Martha’s Vineyard is nice but it is just Grand Bend with more money. The only place we really appreciated stopping in was Provincetown, located at the very tip of the Cape. If you are looking for people watching, go here! But leave your judgements at home; Provincetown is fun, colourful and full of Bears. Which we admit took us embarrassingly too long to figure out.
We did this trip on an extra long weekend and in my opinion that was the perfect length. 3 days in Boston and 2 days road tripping. We drove our own car there which is something we always enjoy, the drive to the destination is part of the trip after all!
We also visit places that highlight Canadian History, like our Nations Capitol, Ottawa.
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