The trip started out well - we paid $4.50 for two people round trip on Megabus. Seriously, look it up. $1 one way plus a one-time 50¢ service fee. We got into Boston on Wednesday afternoon and went to the Museum of Fine Arts, which is free on Wednesdays after 4pm. I was a little disappointed because they're doing a lot of renovations and so much of the art is in storage right now. But since it was free I didn't feel bad telling myself that I'll come back next year when the renovations are done!
Thursday was a beautiful day. It was warm and sunny, so we started out by walking around downtown Boston and starting the Freedom Trail. I downloaded a free podcast on iTunes that was a guide to the walking tour, which was great because we could listen to it as we walked.
Park Street Church
The State House
Granary Burying Ground(John Hancock, Paul Revere, Sam Adams, and Benjamin Franklin's parents are here)
After doing part of the Freedom Trail, we went to the Sam Adams Beer Brewery. They have free tours of the facilities and give you free samples of beer, plus you get to keep your 7-ounce tasting glass. Good deal. I learned a lot about beer brewing (a lot to me, because I knew absolutely nothing before).
- Beer is made with barley, hops, water, and yeast. These are the essential ingredients according to a 15th-century German law, and anything else can't be considered a beer. This is a bit more flexible now with beers made with wheat or fruits and vegetables (think pumpkin ale or cherry ale) but it's the basis of beer brewing.
- Every beer is either made from ale yeast or lager yeast, so a beer is always either an ale or a lager.
- The four things upon which you judge beer in a tasting are color and clarity, aroma, taste, and body. Overall impression is a loose, opinion-based fifth.
The three types of beer we tasted were Boston Lager, Octoberfest (another lager), and Boston Brick Red, which is an ale that is only available on tap in Boston. It isn't bottled or sold on tap anywhere else. It was definitely our favorite.After that, we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which is a beautiful building built in the style of a Venetian palazzo, built by a very rich art collector (Isabella) to house her art collection. It has an indoor courtyard and three floors of rooms packed with art. It was small enough to get through in an hour, but I felt like I could keep coming back and find new things each time.
In the evening, we did a bit more of the Freedom Trail and then met my friend Adri, who goes to Wellesley College, for dinner in the North End, which is the Italian neighborhood. We ate at a great Italian restaurant (I had lobster ravioli...yum). After dinner we went to Mike's Pastry, a very famous bakery with even more famous cannoli. Mom and I split a cannoli - they were huge - and it was probably the best cannoli I've ever had. Coming from New York, I figured we have plenty of great Italian bakeries, so why would I need to try a cannoli in Boston? This cannoli cream was different from the ones we get in New York, and we had a hard time articulating why, but you could taste the ricotta a lot more prominently. It was delicious.
On Friday, we took a bus to Salem, which is about an hour away. It was cloudy and very cold, but we still had fun walking around the town. It was very touristy and had a ton of cheesy witch-related tourist attractions, none of which we did, but it was interesting to see all of the souvenirs and all of the eccentric people around the town. It was also fun because there was a lot of beautiful foliage, and the excitement of Halloween was tangible.
We walked out to the wharf where there's a little lighthouse. In the late 1700s Salem was a huge trading town, and their harbor was very busy with trade ships.
Derby Wharf and Lighthouse
Cute New England street - we ate at the restaurant on the left corner for lunch
A witch on the sidewalkSalem has a memorial to the victims of the witch trials of 1692 (dedicated in 1992) in the center of town, so we went to see that. I didn't take a picture but it was a rectangular courtyard with a low wall of stacked concrete slabs, with 20 slabs sticking out all around the rectangle. On each slab was written the name of a victim, the year of death, and the way they were killed (all were hanged but one man who refused to confess and was crushed to death while they were trying to drag a confession out of him). It was very moving.
And on the other end of the spectrum, here's a picture of me with a statue of Samantha from Bewitched!
We did want to go to the Peabody Essex Museum and tour the historic mansions (it's all one ticket) but we didn't have time, so there will just have to be a second trip!Here's a photo of the beautiful Hudson River on the train ride back to Poughkeepsie:
