Boston, Harvard, Concord & a failed attempt at Salem

After our leisurely day of driving around Cape Cod, we hit the ground running in Boston and I’m almost tempted to label this post “How to give Boston and its surrounds a run for their tourism money in 2½ days”. We took in all we could see and do and set out to tick off the following items:

Do a Duck Tour and ride down the Charles River
Visit Harvard University
Visit the JFK Presidential Library
Walk through Boston Public Garden & Common
Walk the Freedom Trail
Go to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord
Eat a Boston cream puff
Visit Salem and learn about the witch trials

And tick them off we did with the exception of Salem but first things first: a visit to the Cheers bar where, contrary to the show’s theme song, nobody knew our name 😂

It was just a little bit surreal to actually see the Cheers sign in real life

The bar that was used on Cheers. It’s not actually downstairs like you would think – that’s a whole different bar down there. This one is on the floor above.

The Duck Tour showed us the main sights of Boston and took us down the Charles River in the sunshine.

At Harvard we did a free tour led by a student of the university and got a great look into life on campus from a student’s perspective.

Massachusetts Hall, the oldest surviving building at Harvard, dating back to 1718

Memorial Hall, inside which are the names of students and faculty who gave their lives to the Civil War

The statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard. It is believed that rubbing his foot brings good luck.

Many of our American friends have told us to visit a Presidential Library and we’ve been trying to work out when and where we were going to do this. So it was an unexpected bonus when our Airbnb ended up being only minutes from John F Kennedy’s Library & Museum.

When Kennedy and his crew were stranded on an island during World War II, he managed to send a cry for help by carving a message on a coconut shell and giving it to two natives who passed the island in a canoe. The natives passed the coconut shell on to the Allies, Kennedy and his crew were rescued and this coconut shell, which was returned to Kennedy, remained on his desk in the Oval Office.

The Kennedy family Bible which JFK took his Presidential oath on.

The final results of the Presidential election which Kennedy won over Nixon

The Victura, JFK’s favourite sailing boat, gifted to him by his father on his 15th birthday

A walk through Boston Public Garden and Common was very pretty as the trees provided bursts of color everywhere.

The road to the revolution was brought to life for us as we walked the Freedom Trail in the footsteps of Boston patriots including Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere.

The Old Statehouse showing the east balcony from which the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed on July 18, 1776

We took a drive to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord so I could find the graves of Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Which was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack because unlike for Colonel Sanders and Calamity Jane, there’s no one with a map at the entrance telling you where to find them. But find them I did.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is fortunately flanked by his wife and daughter because his name is well worn and hard to read

And a little further down the road and around the corner is the Alcott Orchard House where Louisa May lived with her parents and three sisters and which Little Women’s March family house is based upon.

Our final Massachusetts stop was supposed to be Salem. The site of the Salem Witch Trials, we were a bit excited to visit here because so many people told us how great it is at this time of year leading up to Halloween, with townsfolk dressed up and buildings decorated. Our first clue that this wasn’t going to go as planned was when it took us half an hour of bumper to bumper traffic just to get to the freeway exit to Salem. Another 25 minutes later we made it into the town centre which was simply inundated with people EVERYWHERE. Queues to get into buildings and restaurants were wrapped around the block, pedestrians crossed the streets in masses and parking was absolutely non-existent. After 30 minutes of circling this madness it was clear we never going to find a place to park much less a spot on the sidewalk to stand on and, wondering why there isn’t a park and ride system in place, we hightailed it out of Salem and added it to our list of places to come back to, alongside Yellowstone.

Massachusetts, the rest of you was fabulous!

P&S