Bean town was windy

As I told you before, I went to Boston last week to celebrate my mother’s retirement from teaching. It was a packed week, and we saw a lot of stuff. This is going to be a long tale, so in order to keep the front page manageable you will have to use the link to get to the rest of the rambling.

My mother became enamored of the train while in Europe with my sister. She decided that the trip to Boston would be made by train. I will tell you that a trip by train is fine and interesting for something that is about ten hours or so. Ten hours gets you to DC from Greenville aboard AMTrak. Boston is quite a bit farther north than DC. Our trip was twenty hours by train with a 1.5 hour stopover in Penn Station NYC. Actually on the return trip I stepped up to street level at Penn Station and went outside with my godsister’s words ringing in my ears, “Don’t look like a hick in Boston.” I don’t think I ever really look like a hick unless I mean to, but I could be wrong. However, I will say that I can be crude, unrefined, and blunt, but I consider those my endearing qualities. I remember thinking as I stepped out onto the street, “Hmm. That’s a lot of taxis. That’s a big Post Office. That’s a tall building.” Seemed like a big city to me, though I wasn’t there long enough to see anything spectacular. Big buildings for the sake of big buildings don’t really impress me much. I’m more interested in history and uniqueness. I would have liked to explore more, but I had to get back to the train.

First we had to figure out the transportation system in Boston. We got a hotel in Newton. That meant we had to ride the bus to a location to get the train system. It wasn’t too bad, but it ate about 40 minutes and $2 each way. The hotel and drivers were very helpful and friendly. For those of you that want to go, I have some suggestions at the end of the summary, if you can call something this long a summary.

The weather was in the 90s F the first day, but it was less humid that in SC and a wind was always blowing. That day it was 102 F at home. It threatened rain that night and the next day it never got out of the 70s F still with a constant wind. The morning and evening saw 60s F. The following days it touched the 80s F, so it was great. We never had rain or anything else that ruined a day there.

OOoo look it’s a map.

Our first trip in, we went into Government Center. That’s a fine station, but the most important ones for the historical areas are Park in Boston Common, State under the Old State House, and Haymarket in the North end. Government center is kind of in the middle of those, but it’s also not near a lot of stuff. We went from GC up through some of historic Beacon Hill, nice houses and antique shops, down the upper edge of the common until we had to go into Cheers. Duh we had to go into there. We walked around in the Common and went to the Visitor Center near Park station. We walked through the downtown area near Washington and walked a part of the Freedom Trail, the red line on the map. And now I loose all track of time, so I’ll talk about sites.

Get a trolley tour on the first day. Old Town Trolley Tours was ours and it was great. Use it to make notes of what you would like to see where. There are even night tours for the graveyards.

Walk or ride the subway to long attractions, museums, aquarium, etc for a few days, then get a 3 day pass and zip around seeing all the fast small things you want to see.

You have to go to the Common to see the statues, frog pond, and Swan boats. We almost went to the Hamlet production, but it got rained out.

Walk most if not all of the Freedom Trail. There are walking tours of it with guides. Some of the trolley tours offer these as free perks. Almost every building has a plaque.

Walk around Beacon Hill, or take one of the walking tours. Check for freebies from trolley tickets.

Visit The Old South Meeting House, The Old State House (First public reading of the Declaration of Independence and next to the site of the Boston Massacre), Faneuil Hall Marketplace (be sure to go upstairs), and Quincy Market for eating. The Cheers replica at Quincy was nice and reasonably priced. When going to the Old State house we saw a lot of people pouring out of the basement. We looked and there was a subway entrance. It turns out that’s the State subway station. Weird

Be sure to top by the Union Oyster House and that area. All the places there boast about being the oldest restaurant, pub, or tavern. We ate at The Purple Shamrock. I had the Irish Mix plate, and some superb clam chowda. We also ate at The Green Dragon, an Irish pub where we were served by an Irish woman. I know, because I had to say “Excuse me?” about 4 times. It seemed to be a local hangout with only 10 tables. That was some nice blackened chicken with penne pasta.

Follow The Freedom Trail up through the North End to see Paul Revere’s house and The Old North Church. We took the tour of Paul’s house and sat in the pews of the church for a little history talk. While you are there stop and peruse the restaurants of the Italian section. You have to stop at Mike’s Pastry on Hanover Street. We got a box full of stuff for about $13.

Stop by the aquarium, Imax theater, and Legal Seafood down by Long Warf. We had a great time at the aquarium. If you really want seafood, go to The Barking Crab in the seaport district or south Boston. It’s supposed to be one of the city’s best.

Follow the Freedom trail over the bridge and see the Bunker Hill Monument and the USS Constitution. The constitution was out in the harbor when we got there, and we thought we were going to miss it. It was turned around and brought back in before we left that day, but we didn’t have time for a full tour.

We didn’t even get to see Harvard (Hahviid to Bostonians), the Museum of Fine Arts, or any of hundreds of other places.

If you can’t tell I had a great time, with the exception of the extra long train ride. I would dearly like to go back to see all of the things I missed. You really need 7 days to see everything that you want to see, but we packed a whole lot into the 4 that we were there. The subway system is a breeze to figure out, the busses not so much. If you are having problems ask someone. I was very pleasantly surprised at the friendliness of the people in Boston. In truth most of the time, I felt like I was walking around in downtown Greenville. The streets and subways were really clean and well cared for. Most of the buildings had placards on them indicating their history. It was relatively easy to find places to eat. And the peninsula is remarkably small. We walked all over the place, and things were always closer than they appeared on the map. It might look like 5 blocks to the place, but some of those blocks are 150 feet long. I recommend that if you go try to find a hotel on the subway or train line. Taking the bus was a hassle.

Boston IS a great place to visit.