The Freedom Trail Pt 2

My second day in Boston started off with another great run. This time I went a bit further and came back through a community gardens. These were started as victory gardens during WWII and have either been kept up or re-created since then. Plenty of veggies as well as flowers.

Back at the hostel I went through the normal breakfast/internet routine. Leeann came in at some point and instead of going to Salem she wanted to go do the Freedom Trail. Since I wanted to re-trace it myself we went out together. This time I got to be the tour guide! We spent more time in the commons than I had the day before and found some neat statues including a large one dedicated to veterans of the civil war. We went by the new State House which had a large Boston Celtics banner on it. I thought it was quite crass to take a historical building like that and place something so out of place on it. Putting it on the city hall is one thing but this seemed totally inappropriate and really destroyed the historic context for me. On a funny note, one of the entrances is called the Hooker Entrance so named for General Joseph Hooker. After googleing that I found that I'm probably the millionth person to pick up on that joke :)



Since Leeann wasn't as interested in the history of the place as I was (if you were from Australia would you be?) we made swift progress down the trail. I did get to spend more time in the burial ground and found out that the obelisk with Franklin's name on it was actually for his parents and not for Ben Franklin. We stopped by the grave yard at King's Chapel and basically walked the rest of the stops to Faneuil Hall. I stopped in at the park service building directly opposite the Old State House to pick up a pin for Melanie and when I came out Leeann had acquired a couple of rubbermaid vacuum sealer's from some people who were giving them away. Score!

From Faneuil Hall we wandered along the trail to Paul Revere's house, stopped for pictures, then carried on to the Old North Church and Copp's Burying Ground. We didn't really stop at either of these sites and kept moving across the Charlestown Bridge to the Charlestown Naval Yard. This was one of the largest and most active shipworks in its time but is now open to the public as a museum. Admission is free and you can visit a few ships in the harbor. We grabbed a lobster roll for lunch from the deli on site but it wasn't nearly as good as the one I had at the lobster pound in Maine. After lunch we took a quick tour of the USS Constitution. This is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. If they wanted to, the US Navy could put her out to sea tomorrow. The ship was neat to see and the tour guide did a great job of explaining how the sailors lived and operated on the boat.



After the tour we took some pictures of the area and the went up to the monument at Bunker Hill. This was the site of one of the first major battles of the American Revolution and even though the British one it was quite costly to them and showed that Americans were truly willing to stand up and fight. On an interesting note, the battle was actually fought on Breed's Hill but is named for Bunker Hill because that's where the American general was supposed to construct fortifications. He thought that it would be better to construct them on Breed's hill however so that's where the site is. The obelisk affords a great view of Boston but has 294 steps leading up to it so make sure you're up to the task. Many people arrived at the top panting and had to sit on the bench in the observation room to rest.



Bunker Hill marks the end of the Freedom Trail so we just wandered back through the city with plans to go eat at the original Cheer's bar. Originally called the Bull & Finch pub, they changed the name once the tv show took off to alleviate confusion. The exterior is the same that you saw in the show but the interior layout is different. In fact, it's hard to find anything in the pub to show that you are in Cheers except for the etching into the glass behind the bar. I had the Boston baked beans which aren't really anything to write home about and Leeann had some really tasty chowder. For dessert we tried the Boston Cream Pie which was, again, not really that great but at least I tried the two signature 'Boston' dishes.



That evening was pretty tame. I had planned on going to the art museum which is free on Wednesdays after 4 but decided thhat my feet had had enough walking about and that I wanted to get to bed a little early so I would be fresh for the drive to Newport and Philadelphia so I just stayed in.

Boston pics

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