Boston
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
89
90
Trip End
Jan 06, 2009
Boston, Massachusetts
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Well, finally, we got to Boston and grabbed a cab to our Hotel we had pre-booked in Montreal. Hurrah!!! It was right next to Harvard......but right in the middle of a highway!! Not so Hurrah. But the views of Harvard from our bedroom window and the river below were magnificent.
As the Hotel was a hop and a leap from Harvard University, most of the guests, we figured out, were parents and grandparents of new students and the new students themselves. Why else would a snogging couple in their 20's wish to be situated in the middle of a highway? We had dinner in the Hotel restaurant and planned our 2 days of sightseeing. Sigh. We were so close to going home. We really didn't want to go home but we were running out of steam really.
Up early the next day, to a room full of blinding sunshine. Lovely. We got all togged up in our Michelin man of hats, coats, gloves, scarves etc as it'd also been snowing here and decided to go and explore Harvard, one of the world's most famous and notable Universities. To get there was only a 15min walk across the bridge over the river. The river was just a long snaking expanse of iced up water surrounded by Sunday traffic roaring past it. You could just imagine Dickensian children skating up and down. Far too dangerous nowadays though...you might break a fingernail on the ice after all...
Soon we got to the heart of Harvard's shops. Much like any other University City, there was a plethora of book shops, coffee bars, record shops, clothes shops etc. We went into a heaving starbucks and we people watched for a while. There were students, lecturers?? with heavy briefcases, parents catching up with their Harvard kids and nodding in all the right places, tourists like us gazing at the ceiling, floor, out the window, at maps. Definitely tourists!
Harvard was a fascinating place. A private University, it was originally founded in 1636 so is the oldest educational establishment in the US. Apparently, it was named Harvard after a Clergyman (called Harvard...funny that) donated his library of books to the University. There are approx 2,500 professors!! Harvard Library is believed to be the 4th largest library in the world after The British Library in UK. There are approx 15million volumes of books and 80 separate libraries at the University!!!!!! JFK, Roosevelt, Obama and Bush came to Harvard. (Bush??!) Jack Lemmon, Natalie Portman and Tommy Lee Jones came here too. As a result of all this history then, the architecture was lovely!! With big red brick buildings and tall glinting sash windows, cast iron ornate gates leading into tidy, pretty lawn and gravel gardens abundant with overhanging trees and cast iron benches collecting snow. Jogging along the river was also the popular form of exercise. Made me exhausted watching them all, like a flaming marathon!! We photographed squirrels nibbling nuts in the snow, photographed bicycles buried in the snow...photographed trees in campus courtyards smothered in snow.....snow was a big part of our day again!
The next day, we decided to go on the Freedom Trail around Boston. Because Boston has such a rich colonial history, the Freedom Trail, over 2-3 hours, takes you around all the various notable buildings and landmarks that made Boston the City it is today. Quite a fascinating walk. I know my husband is absolutely flipping genius when it comes to navigating his way around a city/town he's never been to before: one look at a map and he's memorised every street, turn, roadsign and never fails in getting us to our destination perfectly. However, he failed to tell me he cheated on the Freedom Trail walk as in fact all we had to do was follow the red "Freedom Trail" line specially painted on the roads and pavements to guide you. Trying to impress me again, you see! Sigh! (David: There are criteria on how you're meant to navigate these days, are there? I might be ok at reading a map and figuring out where I am, but if someone is considerate enough to paint a dirty great red line through their streets I'll follow that. I call it the path of least resistance.)
I won't detail every single site along the Trail as I will be writing a 16-page blog which some of you will probably not appreciate but some of the notable sites were Boston Common, where we started, which looked much like Hyde Park including a small gathering of bodies trying to resurrect Jesus through the medium of sound. They thought they'd done it and looked aghast when the ground rumbled beneath them but then David pointed out (to me) that it was just the subway. Oh, how we laughed at the Jesus-ites. This then led up to the Massachusettes State House built in 1798 which was beautiful. Benjamin Franklin statue - he was one of the founders of the USA. Quincy Market situated in Faneuil Hall Marketplace which was a stunning building. The area looked exactly like Covent Garden with cobbled streets and small shops and stalls. Faneuil Hall was built in 1824 and served as an indoor food marketplace. Today it is a plethora of fast food stalls from curries to Chinese to corn dogs to burgers to teas and coffees (David: Appropriate puns and references to history come free of charge with the tea.) Beautiful colonial building. The Old North Church was built in 1723 and inspired by Christopher Wren's buildings. Bells were rung here as a signal in 1775 for Paul Revere's midnight ride that preceeded battles in the American Revolution. Paul Revere was a messenger during the American Revolution. His midnight ride is famously symbolic with America, when he was instructed to ride from Boston to Lexington to warn of the British Army who were leading a march. The British Army were stationed in Boston when the ports were closed after the famous Boston Tea Party, and so our Army were under surveillance by Revere because of word that we were starting to move. (David: Can't help but be a bit cynical here, Reveres story sounds very much like the battle of Marathon story.)
It was a great walk ending in Bunker Hill Monument commemorating the Bunker Hill Battle. There is a 221foot obelisk standing proud on a hill, accessed by a million steps. We were knackered by the end and walked back to the subway through little Boston streets with very expensive boutique shops and ladies who lunch in heels in the snow escorted by men in wax jackets and brogues. It was just like walking through Chelsea in London, quite frankly. Boston seemed like a really lovely place actually. Not only was the architecture colonially beautiful but it was a very friendly place with tons of history.
Our next stop was New York. Our final destination home. Sob...sob...sob...
Love, us xxxxxxxxxxxx
