Boston
Saturday 8th October
We are being spoilt on this trip with so many beautiful ports of call.
The port is outside the city and we didn’t have an excursion booked. Our plans were that we would either pick up a hop on hop off bus near the port or a taxi into the city. A nice surprise when we got off was that Princess had laid on free shuttle buses, but because they hadn’t been able to get confirmation until very late the previous day they hadn’t announced it. We rode the shuttle (an American yellow school bus) It dropped us off in the city where we walked through some gardens with lovely fountains and pop up craft stalls to Quincey Market. What an amazing place, and being a Saturday it was packed with shoppers. The vibe was excellent, plenty of delicious looking food and drink mingled in with stalls heaving with a wide range of goods. Outside in the area around the market there were plenty of street entertainers, we stood for about 15 mins and watched a female acrobat, she was excellent in engaging with and involving the audience. We both enjoyed her show.. We strolled around a beautiful Christmas shop to get a decoration for our travel tree then decided to enjoy the sun and have some food and drink as we soaked up the atmosphere.
Fully refreshed we made our way to the hop on hop off trolley kiosk where we booked tickets. We were lucky enough to have the lovely Jay as our driver/guide. She was hilarious and very informative and made our tour, slightly unnerving though as she immediately started singing “clang clang clang went the trolley” complete with actions as she navigated the Saturday afternoon Boston traffic. We didn’t get off the trolley for the whole 2 hour plus loop as we were enjoying her banter and we know we will be back. We got an overview of city, saw the USS Constitution, Cheers bar, Boston Common and the Boston Tea Party ships and museum. We particularly liked the Beacon Hill neighbourhood, full of New England charm with it’s cobblestone, gas lamped lined streets.The lamps are lit all day and night as it is apparently cheaper than paying people to turn them on and off. A highlight in this area was Charles street, home to many shops and businesses, which all displayed a symbol indicating the nature of their work as well as written signage. Apparently this dates backs to the times when a lot of people were unable to read.
The Trolley dropped us off back at the cruise port. which was a bonus.
Our thoughts on Boston were that it was extremely clean and well kept, it felt cared for. A city on the smaller side so getting around would be fairly easy. The old mixed well with the new and it would make a great city break or start and end point on a road trip.
Until next time Boston……