Day 30 - Tuesday 12 June 2012

BOSTON, USA - Day 2

Weather: Overcast, with a chance of showers in the afternoon... but still hot!
　
We had a morning bus tour around the city today - combined with some walking as well. Boy, oh boy!! There is soooo much history in Boston, enough to make my brain want to burst! It was too much to keep track of.


Christian Science Church and reflection
pool

Our first stop was at the Christian Science Church with reflection pool simply because it was a beautiful building.
　
We also made stops at Paul Revere's house and the old North Church, where we were given a short history of the church and its role in the American Revolution against the British by one of the volunteers there.
　
As we left the Old North Church we noticed a rather small house up on the hill. We were informed by Linda, that the house is known as "Spite House" or "Skinny House" - one of the thinnest structures in Boston.

 Legend has it that the house was built by a Civil War solider who came home to find that the plot of land he and his brother had inherited already had a home on it (built by his brother who stayed home during the war). The jilted brother built a narrow home on the remaining land to ruin the view and light from the larger home built inches away.



The Spite House

 Our tour ended at the USS Constitution - an old battle ship. People who wanted to stay, could stay and take a tour of teh ship while the rest of us went back to the hotel.
　
We arrived at the hotel at 11:15am where the people who signed up for the Harvard University tour had 15 minutes for a rest stop before leaving. I was not one of these. I had the day off!
　
I decided to start at the beginning of the Freedom Trail as this would lead me to all the historical sites I wanted to see. So, I headed off to the frog pond on the Boston Common as marked on my map that I had received from the hotel concierge.


The Old State House and site of the Boston Massacre

Nothing much to see there so I followed the red line on the footpath to the State House - where there were kids, kids and more school kids. I kept walking but all the places around the hotel that were marked on the trail were full of shool kids!
　
I decided to come back later to the places near the hotel and kept on walking to the Quincy Market where I thought I'd get some lunch. Wrong!!! Kids everywhere!! You could hardly move inside the market!
I quickly left and I bumped into an American couple from our tour -John and Cathie I think were their names. These two are really lovely people and they invited me to join them on their walk down to the harbour. I hadn't even realised that it was just nearby. It was lovely. We ended up walking along the boardwalk a little bit then went back and walked to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy's rose garden and ended up back at the market. I left them here and continued on my way on the Freedom Trail.

Park Street Church

I ended up going past Paul Revere's house and into "Little Italy". By this stage, I was really tired as I was still trying to recover from my cold. I decided to head back following the red line again as I had no idea where I was (I had stopped looking at the map as I went).
　
When I arrived back at the market to get something to eat, most of the kids were gone. I quickly grabbed two giant pieces of pizza and sat outside to eat - I was starving! As I was sick this morning, I could hardly eat anything.
　
I then followed the line back to the hotel and decided to go back to the placed Linda showed us last night to get better and more photographs.
　
By the time I was almost finished, it was 5pm. I had been walking almost all day and I had to get myself back to the hotel as we were meeting for our farewell dinner at 5:30pm. Not much time for me.
　
We had our farewell dinner at an Italian restaurant where heaps and heaps of fun was had when Bruno played his harmonica and Harry acccompanied him on the spoons! The whole restaurant enjoyed it too. It wasn't just us in the restaurant.
　
We then all got on the bus and Linda decided that, anyone who wanted to walk along the harbour could join her. I was one of those people. The sun had set and the lights of Boston were on display.
　
And that concluded our tour. Tomorrow, one couple leave us at Newport, Rhode Island, some people leave us at JFK Airport and the rest of us head back to the Marriott Eastside in New York City.