Boston tourism

Yes, you read that right, though you might have to suspend your disbelief – I actually got around to doing something touristy, probably for the first time on the trip! Monday I didn’t do a lot. I walked to the local shops and bought a few thinks and also tried out a Dunkin coffee. It was actually fairly decent. I think coffee in the US is OK if you can get people to understand that yes I really do only what milk in my latte. When I first ordered she just waited and then prompted me for what I wanted the idea of only milk clearly seemed odd to her, but I guess that’s just US culture. they don’t seem to do plain coffee.

I slept in longer that I planned to on Tuesday but I decided I was still going to do what I had planned. There’s quite a few things to do in Boston so I had to pick a few. I decided to to the Freedom Trail that afternoon. There’s map of the trail here if you would like to visualise what I did. It’s cool, but also unusual – there’s a literal red line that runs along the pavement or road so you can follow the trail, and as you go along it you come to various attractions and significant locations.

I started at the Old North Church, because that’s where Google send me when I said I wanted to go to the freedom trail. I didn’t actually go into the church, because I wanted to pick and choose what I paid the entry fee for. After that there’s a big courtyard with plaques with information about significant people and spent a chunk of time reading many of those as it was quite interesting.

Next up was the Paul Revere house – I feel like that’s one of the must do locations on the trail. Sadly there’s no photography allowed inside the house, but it was still very interesting to see where he lived and learn more about his historic ride. Following the Paul Revere house it was time for coffee & a muffin!

My next stop was the old statehouse and this was really interesting. A chance to see the foundations for US independence and the original basis for the declaration of independence and the constitution. I went a little crazy at the gift shop here deciding I should probably buy some merch/gifts while I was in the US.

That concluded by tour of the freedom trail, and I headed home. However, I did buy a book at the Paul Revere house which has info about all the attractions on the freedom trail, so at least I can read about the ones that I missed. I do have some pictures, but I’m posting this on my iPad, so I’ll add a post later with some pictures. Well that’s it for Tourism101.