After our adventures in Rhode Island with Aleksy's aunts wedding, family time, and a bit of exploring Providence and area, we headed to Boston on Sunday morning (June 7th) for 2 nights just the 2 of us. I had booked our hotel in Boston about a month in advance. I was looking up hotels in Boston and fond most were super expensive around $300 per night and the weekend we were going, there were lots of bookings. Luckily, I found a simply, definitely not fancy hotel just outside of Boston (in Malden) that we stayed at for 2 nights for around $250... breakfast included (we always need our breakfast included!).
It took about an hour and a half to get from where we were staying in Providence to Boston. When we reached Boston, the first thing we noticed was that driving was friggin crazy! There were lots of tunnels like this one, and "roundabouts" where not everyone goes the same direction... I did not drive in Boston.
After locating our hotel and dropping our belongings off in our room, we headed back into central Boston! We parked pretty close to the north end/harbour front. There was a little incident with parking the car where we tried to ask questions to the man in the parking garage and his instruction was unclear. After we parked in an area we shouldn't have, he requested to take the keys and valet park it. I was a bit (a lot) worried... about my car and about the cost!
After some serious consideration about moving the car, we eventually left it and we ventured into the heart. We first came across the harbourwalk. It was a pretty brief walk along the water, but it was nice to look from the water at the tall buildings toward Boston central.
We found some good buskering!! As we ventured further in, we noticed this massive crowd around a bunch of guys who were dancing. Then they pulled some people from the crowd including "tall white boy", gathered donations from the crowd and one guy jumped over 5 people (including "tall white boy"!).
Aleksy caught him mid-air. Photographer extraordinaire.
We took a mid day break from exploring for some dunkin donuts! If you read my Rhode Island post, you'll know that I needed to get me a Coolatta, and here's me having a Boston Cream.... in Boston!
So many stops at Dunkin Donuts on this trip! They were so readily available...
And we made it in to the Boston Common! This was our first of many stops to the Boston Common: a massive park right in central Boston. It was my opportunity to have a sitting break because at 23 weeks pregnant, all that walking makes my back need a break...
While we were in Boston Common, we decided that we would take the next day to complete the freedom trail... a walk through Boston viewing historical buildings while learning about the history of the City and its relationship to independence. We bought a booklet from the tourist centre to inform ourselves of the history on each site of the freedom trail for the next day...
Right across from the Boston Common is the original Cheers bar from the 80s show. I don't really remember the show but we needed to hit up the bar because its one of the main touristy attractions! Aleksy did get to drink out of this fun beer mug... having the local selection of Samuel Adams. And I felt included also because Cheers had their own special brew of root beer in its own special brown bottle that made me feel like I was drinking... without the harmful effects on baby!
The food itself in the bar was not fabulous... we had a couple of burgers with salads and it was very basic. We also had the clam chowder... it was a bit pricey. We found it to be more of a come for a drink kinda place.
And after supper, we did a little more exploring of the shops in Boston from Bunker hill and to the North end. When exploring bunker hill, we found a children's store and bought some books for baby! The streets and buildings were pretty cool along that walk... lots of hills and buildings that were very old.
We stopped at Mike's Pastry shop in the north end just before heading back to the hotel for the evening. This is one busy pastry shop.. you can see the people packed in behind me. It was so busy that you couldn't fully see all the pastries and goodies that they had because of the swarms of people inside. We did get some amazing canolis, cookies, and boston cream cake!
Our goodies from day 1 exploring Boston: our books that we bought for baby, our pastries, and our freedom trail guide and Boston map for day 2 in Boston.
We were actually back at the hotel at a very decent hour (before 8pm). It was Sunday night, so al the stores that sold alcohol were closed so Aleksy had a dry night with me... just iced tea and lemonade (my new go-to pregnancy drink!). With all our extra down time, we even had time to watch a movie: the blindside.
Day 2 exploring Boston: we parked in a different parking lot closer to the Boston Common (which was more expensive at $33!) and started our day finding the bench from the movie Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams sat. Google helped us to locate which bench it was... but there were people sitting on it. All that searching to find it and we took this picture
<------ that's actually the bench beside it (its kinda the same thing...)
This was in the park beside Boston Common where they have swan boats!
And we started the Freedom trail from the Boston Common! We started around 11am and it took us about 5 hours! The man at the tourist building estimated 2 and a half hours so I guess we were pretty slow and thorough...
It was really easy to follow with a brick path that leads the way (you can see the rd bricks in the picture).
The freedom trail was a trail with numerous stops to see buildings, churches, cemeteries, monuments etc. and with the brochure we bought we informed ourselves of the history of the various sites. The history was all about local events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Some of the stops along the way were cooler than others... there were 2 churches that we visited that were designed like this one in the picture. Instead of rows of pews, there was actually little booths where you have your own private sitting for church! They were divided up into a bunch of little booths... probably not the best way to fit lots of people...
I took a little pregnant sit break in a booth and read up on the church in our guide!
One of the last couple stops on the freedom trail was this: the bunker hill monument. It was located right near the water and on elevated land. The monument was built to remember a battle that took place on the land. It was definitely one of the cooler looking sites that we visited!
While it was nice to tour around the city centre of Boston (and the freedom tail is a great way to see the whole city centre and lots of touristy sites), it was also not quite as happening of a place from our last vacation adventures on the UK. We were really glad to have visited the city, but found that 2 nights was more than adequate to see Boston!
This was our very last stop on the freedom trail before heading back to where all the restaurants and shops are (At this point, we had walked so far on the other side of the water!). This ship was massive even though it doesn't look it in the picture! The crazy part is that this boat still goes out! It was restored a couple decades ago and goes out a few times per year since the restoration...
The massive ship was our last stop, which was right along the water. When we had picked up our trail guide from the tourist information centre, the person checking us out recommended that we take the ferry back into the city to save some walking and see Boston from the water. This is us on the ferry heading back into Boston for some supper!
It was a wee bit windy...
Our final stop in Boston was at an Italian Restaurant for supper! There seemed to be a lot of Italian restaurants and the night before when we were walking down the north end of Boston, we could smell delicious garlic bread so I really wanted some Italian on our last night!
We found a restaurant that was just off the strip where all the other restaurants and shops (like Mike's Pastry) were, which we were hoping was less expensive. We ended up paying a bit more than expected because our appetizer was $20... but sooo worth it! Best antipasto plate ever with meats, cheeses, flatbread, olives & greens. We were pretty full from our appetizer, so we had our pasta to go (and ate it for lunch on the roadtrip home the next day!).
It was a little of a weird supper because we were offered to sit in the lower level of the restaurant and no one else came downstairs so we had the whole lower level to ourselves (while the upper level had several tables!).
After supper, we headed back to the car, made a pit stop to the liquor store to get drinks for the night and a bottle to take home (which is the worst pregnant experience when in the States... I couldve had so many yummy options!). We were back to the hotel at a reasonable time again (around 8pm) and planned to leave for the road trip back home the next morning!
The next morning (which was Tuesday the 9th) we left for Canada! We paid our fortune to the tolls on the way home and made sure we filled up gas before crossing the border. And made one last supper stop at Cracker Barrel. I don't remember ever eating there before but we got some delicious southern style food (lemonade, fried chicken, biscuits, and corn bread) for a reasonable price (it was around $20!). We even bought a gift for Cadence's first birthday at the country store where they have some super original things!
I fully forgot about the awesome dancing buskers until I read this post! How could I forgot the jumping black man! I'm pretty sure that our Italian dinner was the weirdest dinner experience ever as we ate by ourselves....even weirder than when we had the platter of grilled reproductive organs and intestines in Argentina.
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