Bahston Been There

Day 2 saw us further inundated with American history. We started the day with a visit to North Boston or Little Italy as it is now known. Skinny streets with miles and miles of 200 - 300 year old brownstone houses and apartments. The area is home to the "Old North Church" which played a pivotal part in the American Revolution. Perhaps the quote "One if by land and two if by sea." rings a bell. No pun intended. It is the church where they used the bell tower in which to hang the two lanterns that told the revolutionaries that the English were coming across the Charles River to march toward Lexington and Concord. " One if by land and two if by sea" were words in the poem "Paul Revere's Ride" written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow long after the actual event. Then on to a visit and a quick tour to Paul Reveres house which is still standing in North Boston. It seems that Paul was only one of over a dozen riders who headed out to warn the Revolutionaries. Paul became the poster boy for these heroes, mostly in part because of Longfellow's poem.


Boston is an excellent walking city but at the same time has an excellent transit system and getting to the various historical sites is very easy. The Old Government House was our next stop. The building is considered the geographic centre of Boston and the "Boston Massacre" occurred just outside the front door of the building. Massacres were more compact in the Revolutionary times with only 7 people killed in this fight. The massacre was not planned by the British to occur. A small group British Regulars were surrounded by a very large and unruly crowd and only fired into the crowd when they were spooked by someone in the crowd firing a gun into the air. A while later, the newly written constitution was read from the balcony of the building to the citizens of the newly created republic.



Dropped in to Hahvard University to sign up our grandchildren. That is assuming MIT or Oxford doesn't get them first.









Day 3 started with a visit to Fenway Park, the oldest operating baseball field in the world. During our travels around Boston, we found many sites that claimed to be the first and/or oldest something in the world /North America. Boston has done a wonderful job maintaining their historic sites. We were lucky and our tour group was allowed to access the playing field and I got to touch the "Green Monster" as well as sitting in the seats at the top of it. We finished the day with a ferry ride to Salem and a visit to the Salem Witches Museum. Scary stuff.

Andover and the wedding celebrations are next on our to do list.