New England Day 10: Boston

The next day was our only full day in Boston, so it was jam-packed. We started at an interactive reenactment of the Boston Tea Party which was really fun. Our costumes were very authentic.

"Throw the tea into the sea!"

We then started the Freedom Trail, which is a path winding through the city hitting all of the major historical sites. It is long and we were tired. First site: Boston Common and Massachusetts Statehouse.

Granary Burying Ground, with the graves of Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, among others.

King's Chapel and Old South Meeting House

Old State House and the site of the Boston Massacre

We stopped at Faneuil Hall for lunch and some ice cream. We'd been talking about ice cream for days, and you know how when you decide you really want something then you look around forever to make sure you've found the best one but then you never actually end up getting the thing you've been looking for? That was happening to us, so we finally just took the plunge and bought the ice cream. Not the best I've had but more than sufficient.

Holocaust Memorial

A cool-looking house and Paul Revere's house. We were too late to go into Paul Revere's house and generally you don't enter random people's houses so we didn't get to go into either.

Old North Church and Skinny House

USS Constitution

Bunker Hill

My friend Rachel lives in Boston so I texted her to get a recommendation for dinner. She suggested Giacamo's, which is an Italian place that she claimed was delicious. There was a wait, but goodness it was worth it. The butternut squash on the right was very possibly the most amazing thing I have ever put in my mouth.

For dessert, we hit up Mike's Pastry and tried the famous cannoli. There were so many flavors to choose from, but we went with lemon, peanut butter, and original. I think the lemon may have been my favorite. We didn't eat these until much later in the evening and they made an excellent breakfast the next day!

New England Day 9: Massachusetts

After Rhode Island, we headed up to Massachusetts, which we both loved. Our first stop was Plymouth Rock, which is really only part of the rock and is really only supposedly the real rock. Plymouth is a beautiful little town, though. We hiked up the hill to the cemetery and saw some very old monuments to some very famous people.

This was a replica of the Mayflower, which we did not pay to go into.

On our way up to Boston, we stopped in Scituate, Massachusetts which had a beautiful little light house with an awesome story. I loved the story of these young, brave sisters!

That evening we made it into Boston. As I mentioned before, we were able to find places to stay for 14 out of our 17 nights. Before we left, however, we didn't have a place to stay in Boston and were a little worried because all of the hotels we'd seen were really expensive. When we were already out on the trip, my sister texted me telling me that some old friends of hers who lived in Boston had offered to let us stay with them. They had an awesome apartment right next to the train and it made our stay in Boston so convenient and affordable. Mik and Tif and their four kids were so much fun to talk to and made us feel completely comfortable. Just one of the many miracles we witnessed on this trip.

The evening that we arrived, we rode the train in to see a few places, including the Boston Public Library and the finish line of the Boston Marathon. We ate at Max Brenner, which had cool waffle sandwiches, both sweet and savory. The weather was perfect and the city was beautiful.

The library itself was a stunning building. We walked around inside for quite a while, admiring the architecture and artwork.