Beautiful Boston

Boston – beautiful Boston.

Boston is beautiful, and historic. I enjoyed it much more than I thought.

First on the bucket list was Harvard. Luckily our friend Joe works for Harvard so on the way into Boston to our hotel, he kindly offered to show us around. This was lucky, as it has leafy-lined streets, gorgeous student accommodation (would put Dunedin flats to shame) small streets and hardly any parking! Joe parked at a parking building you pay for by the year (he comes in 3 times a week) and it was a short walk to the campus.

We heard about John Harvard – founder in 1600’s. Yes it is that old! He set up a library and then it grew into a school and from there …. 13 faculties spread out. It was a lovely feeling walking through – old trees, old buildings with so much history behind each one.

The statue of John Harvard is very photographed – app. Students kiss his shoes for good luck (note how shiny his feet are!) except the rival MIT (think engineer Howard from Big Bang Theory went there) students came and wee –ed on it!

After our tour we went with Joe into the Harvard Museum of Natural History. This was full of donations and collections from the past 300 years. Even some Maori patu (clubs). Very fascinating place.

Thanks so much to Joe for giving us his time and patience for putting up with my endless questions!

Day 1 – was hop on off bus day. Glorious day weather wise (26C) – we got off at Boston Common and then walked 4 kilometeres of the ‘Freedom Trail’. This is a case of follow the red brick line – and goes through and pass some of the historic places in old-town Boston with a book you pick up and read about what happened at each place! A great way of discovering and taking you time as well. I learnt so much more about the American revolution (this was where it all started). You even go over a bridge over the Charles river to  Charlestown (lovely up-market suburb) with boat yards etc.

Obviously all this walking tired me out! So back on the hop –on-off bus back to the hotel. (This hotel is attached to a huge up-market mall where you can buy anything at top prices – no sales!)

Later in the afternoon, back on the bus to the pier/wharf area for a drink at an outdoor bar, then dinner and then to a ‘Ghost and graveyards’ scary tour!. You hopped on a trolley with all these people dressed up as actual dead people who gave you their scary stories (all gruesome stories). We stopped at 2 graveyards (they have locks to unlock as it is dark, no lights – just an old lantern!) and tell stories about some darstardly people buried there, and how they died – pretty awful! ) it was really funny (believe it or not!). Did you know in one graveyard there were 3000 graves, but only 2000 gravestones (some were taken for foundations of nearby houses, or for cooking stones!). Then bodies got taken by grave robbers- and then to save space they buried bodies on top of each other (5 deep).

Day 2 – another hop on off bus day. This time we stopped off at the Boston Tea Party ship and museum and went for a tour. This was fantastic. The actors had you act out all of what went on to cause the locals to get upset at taxes with out representation- and decide to dress up as Red Indians  and dump the tea into the harbour rather than pay taxes. Great tour.

Then onto a Boston harbour cruise which took you up and down the harbour part of Boston and told you about all you could see. (did you know that 75% of Boston is on re-claimed land?) Boston has  3 million people in it by the way!

That evening we flew out to Niagara – we need a rest!