After a brief stop in Big D to allow my BBL a day at work (somebody has to keep a job in this household), we were off to Boston via AA along with everybody else who could fit in the 757. This was the maiden visit to this fair city for my maiden, although I had visited the area once over 35 years ago. It's funny the impressions of a place that stay with you--lingering in my subconscious was what terrible drivers I had seen, maybe on a par with those in Puerto Rico. First time I had ever seen both freeway shoulders regularly used as passing lanes! Anyway, I had no desire to see if 3 ½ decades of driver education had had any positive impact on the area drivers, so you can imagine how my my interest peaked when we learned that Logan Airport is serviced by water taxis: $20 and 10 minutes later we arrived downtown only a half block from our hotel with both a new experience and several restaurant suggestions from our driver/captain. We took this as a very good omen about the time we were about to spend here. One of Boston's nicknames is "The Walking City" and as soon as we deposited our luggage at the Marriott Long Wharf, we were (mostly) on our feet for the rest of our stay. It’s probably called “The Walking City” because available parking spaces are extremely rare and expensive.
Boston welcomes tourists with a “Freedom Trail” that winds all through the city and neighboring Charlestown. The Trail is (usually) clearly marked by either a broad red line painted on the pavement--or by a much classier double width red brick line embedded in the sidewalk. We followed this "line" everywhere and it took us past more historic sites than we’ve ever seen. And it's amazing how you want to keep your feet in contact with that line (which shrinks the width of the sidewalk considerably when encountering tourists going the opposite direction)!
The Freedom Trail line took us a few days to complete. It led us by Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market where you are free to indulge in 50x50 different ways to snack/eat/shop. It took us by the Boston Massacre that apparently occurred on a small traffic island in a street intersection (hard to miss . . . there was usually a tour group standing on it). Of course, any intersection in this city has the potential to continue the massacre of pedestrians with automobiles in the constant daily struggle for right-of-way.
We saw lots of churches with their attendant steeples and cemeteries, most squeezed by modern office skyscrapers and buildings. Busy narrow streets were populated by the competition of the expected number of Starbucks and a surprising number of Dunkin’ Donuts -- separated by lots of local bagel outlets and a few haberdasheries. We stumbled across several open air markets offering fruit and flower bargains that we would have loved to take full advantage of, but obviously couldn’t.
Speaking of open air, we took the opportunity to get back on the water for a couple of cruises: a delightful dinner cruise around Boston Harbor where we caught a beautiful sunset behind the city’s skyline; and a whale watching adventure that provided an astounding amount of whale sightings/activity once the crew found their feeding area (about 90 minutes on a fast catamaran from our hotel).
Another of Boston’s nicknames is “The Hub City” which supposedly morphed from a Oliver Wendell Holmes statement that Boston was ”the Hub of the Solar System”-- later toned down to the humble “Hub of the Universe” [and they think Texans exaggerate?!]. But it is definitely the liberal land of Kennedy, Kerry and Barney Frank all of whom helped stimulate Boston with the “Big Dig,” originally a $2.8 billion project (in 1986 dollars) to reposition underground some of the downtown’s Interstate--which ended up costing $22 billion with a five year delay. But the resulting downtown city parks atop the buried road are beautiful and it’s our opinion that every taxpayer should experience them (otherwise it would have been a waste of money). Comforting to know that we still have this kind of expertise in Congress.
A few other memories we took away:
· There are 294 steps up the inside of the Bunker Hill Monument. And there is a much easier route to get panoramic views which is riding the elevator to the 50th floor of the Prudential Building;
· A Sir Speedy Print Shop resides at the Birthplace of Benjamin Franklin, who was a printer (among many other things) himself;
· Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe has the best breakfast/lunch, but no restrooms;
· Norm is still at Cheers! (as a cardboard cutout character);
· The pews at Paul Revere’s Old North Church are in “boxes” that were rented annually to families and designed to keep them warm(er) in Winter;
· The many parks and statutes—particularly Boston Marathon’s “The Tortoise and the Hare” and the Public Garden’s “Make Way For Ducklings” (which was always mobbed by kids);
· One Italian restaurant after another in the North End;
· My BBL’s first encounter with a Lobster Roll (that will be $25 please!);
· Lunch with a friend who was a colleague of mine when we started our careers a lifetime ago.
If you get the chance, do go experience the city yourself. You won’t regret it.
Boston welcomes tourists with a “Freedom Trail” that winds all through the city and neighboring Charlestown. The Trail is (usually) clearly marked by either a broad red line painted on the pavement--or by a much classier double width red brick line embedded in the sidewalk. We followed this "line" everywhere and it took us past more historic sites than we’ve ever seen. And it's amazing how you want to keep your feet in contact with that line (which shrinks the width of the sidewalk considerably when encountering tourists going the opposite direction)!
The Freedom Trail line took us a few days to complete. It led us by Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market where you are free to indulge in 50x50 different ways to snack/eat/shop. It took us by the Boston Massacre that apparently occurred on a small traffic island in a street intersection (hard to miss . . . there was usually a tour group standing on it). Of course, any intersection in this city has the potential to continue the massacre of pedestrians with automobiles in the constant daily struggle for right-of-way.
We saw lots of churches with their attendant steeples and cemeteries, most squeezed by modern office skyscrapers and buildings. Busy narrow streets were populated by the competition of the expected number of Starbucks and a surprising number of Dunkin’ Donuts -- separated by lots of local bagel outlets and a few haberdasheries. We stumbled across several open air markets offering fruit and flower bargains that we would have loved to take full advantage of, but obviously couldn’t.
Speaking of open air, we took the opportunity to get back on the water for a couple of cruises: a delightful dinner cruise around Boston Harbor where we caught a beautiful sunset behind the city’s skyline; and a whale watching adventure that provided an astounding amount of whale sightings/activity once the crew found their feeding area (about 90 minutes on a fast catamaran from our hotel).
Another of Boston’s nicknames is “The Hub City” which supposedly morphed from a Oliver Wendell Holmes statement that Boston was ”the Hub of the Solar System”-- later toned down to the humble “Hub of the Universe” [and they think Texans exaggerate?!]. But it is definitely the liberal land of Kennedy, Kerry and Barney Frank all of whom helped stimulate Boston with the “Big Dig,” originally a $2.8 billion project (in 1986 dollars) to reposition underground some of the downtown’s Interstate--which ended up costing $22 billion with a five year delay. But the resulting downtown city parks atop the buried road are beautiful and it’s our opinion that every taxpayer should experience them (otherwise it would have been a waste of money). Comforting to know that we still have this kind of expertise in Congress.
A few other memories we took away:
· There are 294 steps up the inside of the Bunker Hill Monument. And there is a much easier route to get panoramic views which is riding the elevator to the 50th floor of the Prudential Building;
· A Sir Speedy Print Shop resides at the Birthplace of Benjamin Franklin, who was a printer (among many other things) himself;
· Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe has the best breakfast/lunch, but no restrooms;
· Norm is still at Cheers! (as a cardboard cutout character);
· The pews at Paul Revere’s Old North Church are in “boxes” that were rented annually to families and designed to keep them warm(er) in Winter;
· The many parks and statutes—particularly Boston Marathon’s “The Tortoise and the Hare” and the Public Garden’s “Make Way For Ducklings” (which was always mobbed by kids);
· One Italian restaurant after another in the North End;
· My BBL’s first encounter with a Lobster Roll (that will be $25 please!);
· Lunch with a friend who was a colleague of mine when we started our careers a lifetime ago.
If you get the chance, do go experience the city yourself. You won’t regret it.
This link takes you to a video slideshow (with music). I prefer watching it in “full screen” mode, even though it makes the pictures a bit “fuzzier”. Or this link will take you to a silent site where the individual pictures are posted, although not in the same sequence as the video.
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