Beantown Anniversary

Of all the things I took for granted that the pandemic took from me, travel ranks high on the list.  I love to travel and missed exploring the the world when quarantine grounded me.  In August of 2019 I went to Spain with my family and haven’t been abroad since.  The only trips I took were to Chincoteague. That trip is important and I am glad I was still able to go there, but it’s a big country and a big world and I feared falling behind on the bucket list.

Now I can fly, and even fly abroad again, but it seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.  For example, last winter Kevin and I were thinking of doing a domestic trip and going down south to Charleston and Savannah.  Then the Omicron variant hit and flights were being canceled all over the place.  We decided it was best not to take any vacations where we had to fly in the coming months.  Who knew when the next variant would hit and shutdowns would happen all over again?

 

Even now quarantines and masks are no longer required, but that hasn’t made air travel any easier.  The horror stories of canceled flights and bumped passengers continue.  Let’s not forget the stories of angry, abusive passengers.  Airlines are overbooked and understaffed, and it seems too much can go wrong.  As much as I would like to go abroad, or even cross a significant portion of the US, I hesitate to book a flight anywhere.  Any trips I take need to be places I can reach by car or train.  That means since 2020 the only vacations I took were to Chincoteague (of course) and a weekend in Boston for my nephew’s wedding.

It was that weekend trip that inspired my first non-Chincoteague vacation since the pandemic began.

I never spent any significant time in Boston.  I have been to a few other places in Massachusetts.  When I was growing up my grandparents would take my brother and me for short trips to Cape Cod some summers.  We would usually stop and stay for a couple of days with my grandfather’s brother who lived in Needham, a Boston suburb.  When they grew too old to travel, I didn’t return to Massachusetts again until college when  I sang in a church in another Boston suburb during the spring concert choir tour  (close enough to my family that my great aunt attended).  Twelve or thirteen years ago I spent a day in Boston doing client visits.  As luck would have it, Mike was living in Boston with his husband and father-in-law at the time, so we were able to meet for drinks before I headed home.  I saw Mike, but I didn't see any sites.

This is why when we were in Boston earlier this year I had a brilliant idea.  We could go to Boston for our next vacation.  It hit all the right buttons.  It is easy to reach by train.  We already knew and liked a hotel convenient to the train station.  It’s filled with interesting historical sites (Kevin is a huge history buff).  I was further inspired to go for our anniversary in October.  We have been taking “daycations” for our anniversary in recent years.  Why not extend it to a long weekend?  Our anniversary is also our nephew’s birthday, so we could have a double celebration.  Plus we could experience that whole “Fall in New England” thing the internet is so excited about (another example of the Fall Industrial Complex).  We booked it (please don’t ask me how much I badgered poor Kevin to take care of that) and now I have a new reason to make a vacation blog post.

Day 1

We took the Amtrak from Stamford mid morning. I love the train ride to Boston.  It’s a scenic trip up the Connecticut coastline.  The trip to Boston is worth it for the train ride alone.  If you are looking for a scenic fall drive but don’t want the stress of driving through the apple-picker traffic, book a train ride through Connecticut.

It’s even better sitting on the other side of the train when you have the coastal view.

We arrived at our hotel, the Intercontinental, in the mid afternoon.  We stayed here for Malcolm’s wedding and loved it. It’s a short walk from South Station and a reasonable walking distance to many popular tourist attractions.  It has a back patio with a water view.  It has a well-equipped gym and one of the biggest hotel pools I have ever seen.  We were happy to be back there again.

After unpacking we had a few hours until dinner, so it was time to get into full tourist mode.  The hotel sits near the site of the Boston Tea Party and there is a museum and replica ships in the middle of the channel behind the hotel.  We made that our first stop.

The museum experience is a bit hokey, but it does the job of educating tourists.  It’s almost like a Colonial-era Renaissance Faire.  

The tour starts in a meeting room where Phyllis Wheatley warms up the crowd.

Everyone is issued a card with a short biography of someone who attended the Boston Tea Party. Museum visitors are supposed to represent the people on those cards.

Sam Adams joins her and they begin to introduce the crowds to the situation surrounding the Tea Party to provide context.

Next we were led to a replica ship where we had a lecture on the ships and their cargo and how difficult it would have been to open up a crate of tea and throw it overboard.  Nonetheless, there were PVC pillows in the shape of tea chests tied to the side of the boat so we could enjoy throwing them overboard. (If you are friends with me on Facebook, then you have seen me do my reenactment.)

Inside the museum were artifacts such as letters, old books, and old photos along with the only known surviving tea chest from the event.  There were some holographic conversations between Tory and Patriot neighbors along with video speeches from Sam Adams and King George, taken from their letters and diaries. (Photos were not allowed at this point).

The museum pumps out fife and drum music outside constantly.  You can hear it just walking by. It can get on your nerves when you are waiting outside to get in.  

After our museum visit we crashed at the hotel for a bit before dinner.  It was our 21st anniversary so we had a swanky meal planned.  (See my food blog for more information.)

Day 2

A first time visitor to Boston is likely to want to walk the Freedom Trail.  We were no exception.  I waffled over the best way to do it.  A tour could skip over too much and be too fast and generic.  On the other hand, getting a guidebook and trying to navigate it all ourselves could be daunting.  I did my research and found a tour that would show us a large portion of the sites and not be geared to idiots. Our guide was an actual historian with an exceptional breadth of knowledge of the revolution.  

We visited the King’s Chapel burial ground that contained the bodies of the earliest Puritan government figures. Mike talked at length about the lives and beliefs of the Puritans and how they influenced our culture and government and the history of the Massachusetts charter.

I always found the skull and wings on old tombs to be creepy, but they are supposed to symbolize resurrection. 

We also went to the Granary Burial Ground where we saw the graves of James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere.

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There is a pub across the street and the big joke all the tour guides tell is you can enjoy a cold Sam Adams next to a cold Sam Adams.

Speaking of jokes, I can’t help but make off-color jokes about the name John HanCOCK and the size shape of his stone.  Did such an important man need to overcompensate?

Paul Revere never wanted a fancy headstone.  His actual stone is quite small, but decades after his death when his place in history became more prominent (thanks Longfellow), his grave received a memorial monument.

 We walked by his house too.

Did you know one of his wives was named Rachel?

Let’s not forget the famous statue with the steeple of the Old North Church in the background.

Mike went into full details of the story of the famous ride and also talked at length about the players in the revolution your school history textbooks don’t talk much about. 

We saw most of the major sites like the Old South Meeting  House…

We browsed the shops for a short while in Faneuil Hall.

The Old City Hall

We even spotted Ben Franklin there right alongside his statue. 

We explored some pretty streets and alleys in the North End.

We ended up with a view of the Bunker Hill Memorial.

It was a long and exhausting tour, but well worth the price. After lunch (see food blog) I thought about taking a walk to one of the sites on the trail so I could explore the insides, but my lunch was not without booze and we ended up crashing at the hotel for the rest of the afternoon.

Refreshed from our naps, we took another tour after dinner.  This was a nighttime ghost and graveyards tour.  I thought it would be a fun way to put some variety in our trip. We returned to the Granary and visited a couple of other graveyards where we heard all sorts of legends and ghost stories, all were entertaining and fun. 

Here is my ghost story for the trip.  We visited the grave of one of the early revolutionary figures who was adamant he didn’t want the British desecrating his grave, so he had himself buried extra deep after he was killed in battle.  The frustrated British soldiers couldn’t dig up his body, so they shot musket balls into the headstone.  Our guide said people often find orbs in the photos they take of the grave, and orbs are a sign of a restless and unhappy spirit.  This patriot won't rest easily because he couldn't stop the British from desecrating his grave.

I took a few photos of the grave.  There are no traditional glowing white orbs, but you can see a little green glowing light moving in the area.  I am a skeptic and I know a more science-y person will have a logical explanation for it.  I will side with that story.  For those of you who don’t want logical explanations, enjoy those photos.

It is creepily cool to be visiting graveyards at night in general, especially old graveyards a few weeks from Halloween.

Day 3

We were back in the sunshine and world of the living. We took a photo tour of Beacon Hill.

I wanted to explore some of the scenic neighborhoods of Boston and Kevin is a photography buff, so this tour was a real gem.

What are some of my favorite photographic subjects?  I love windows and doors.

The photographer guide spent a lot of time showing us how to play with reflections.

This is a “hidden house” beyond an alley set back from the sidewalk.

Another favorite subject is roads, alleys, pathways, and trails.

The “house” at the end of the alley is a false façade meant to cover an ugly wall.

Even the door knockers were cool.  This one provided a new opportunity to photograph reflections. 

We saw some celebrity  homes and homes with historical significance as well.  

The oldest house in Beacon Hill is a wooden home that once housed a barbershop owned by African Americans.

We saw the house where a young Louisa May Alcott lived with her family.

John Kerry’s house.

Robin Cook’s house (the one with the flag).

Of course the tour concluded with Acorn Street, the most photographed street in Boston.

 

 

After the tour and a stop for lunch, we took the subway to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

 

This is not your typical art museum.  It is part museum and part historic home.  Isabella Stewart Gardner was a wealthy Boston socialite, intellectual, and major patron of the arts.  She started out as an avid collector of rare books and manuscripts and then began collecting paintings and decorative arts.  She was a music lover as well.  She filled every room of her home with these works, with every room having a theme.  Every painting was hung with a purpose.  Some of the paintings were ones she purchased.  Some she commissioned.  Some of them were gifts.  For example, there was a violinist whose work she enjoyed and John Singer Sargent gifted her with a portrait of him. 

Speaking of Sargent, the Spanish Cloister on the first floor has a hall that terminates in his painting El Jaelo.

 

                                                    

 

It would be impossible to take photos of all the works of major artists in the museum, so I decided not to even try.  I will only suggest if you are ever in Boston to visit the museum yourself and see everything it contains.  

 

The one thing I will share is the most stunning part of the museum, the courtyard garden.  It was inspired by Gardner's travels in Venice.  

I had to photograph it from every angle and show off as much of the works within it as possible, including the mosaic floor in the middle of it.

It was a long day, so we only explored the first two floors.  I would like to go back and see the rest of it some day.  

We returned to the hotel where I chilled out at the pool.  The weightlessness of the water was helpful to my aching back and limbs.

Dinner, breakfast, and a train home and our vacation was over.  This was a perfect short interlude for us and helped me scratch that itch the travel bug left me three years ago.  

What will be our next train trip?  Maybe Washington D.C. in the spring?