The night before we found some brochures for different hop on/hop of trolley tours. I generally think these are kind of touristy and silly, but I'm glad that we decided to get tickets. We started at a stop by the mall since we found that would be the easiest way to park. Well...kind of easy. Turns out you have to park in a parking garage, take some escalators up to the mall, and then find your way out. Needless to say, it took me far too long to meet my mom back where I had dropped her off to find the tickets. I'm going to blame it on the fact that it was still pretty early. We started our tour ad learned interesting facts about Boston, like did you know that part of the city used be water and they filled it in (in the beginning with very limited tools)? And now all kinds of buildings and parks are just on the man made island. I think that people are just amazing. I'm not sure I would ever think, "well, it looks like we're out of room, might as well grab a shovel and start throwing dirt in the ocean."
We took the obligatory picture at Cheers, but we got there too early to see a replica of the bar.
We continued the bus tour until we got to the first stop of the Freedom Trail. Then we got off and walked through all the historical sites.
Here's mom with a statue of Mr. Franklin. He was strangely in a courtyard of a steakhouse. I'm assuming not originally, but it was still odd.
Here's the problem with waiting until 2 months later to do a recap of the trip. I'm pretty sure this is King's Chapel. This picture shows how all of modern Boston has just crept up right to "Old Boston". I think we were both surprised at how you almost had to search for some of the historical sites sandwiched in between "new" buildings. For some reason I had imagined everything kind of set aside.
Then we saw this, next to Faneuil Hall, a market that we passed by since we were getting hungry and wanted to eat in a section of town with lots of Italian restaurants. There wasn't any explanation, just a big macaroni.
This is Paul Revere's house. It's amazing that so many of these buildings are still standing after all these years.
Mom's happy about her lobster ravioli. It was delicious. I snuck a bite.
And here's my calzone. There may have been 14 lbs of cheese inside there. And it was also delicious. But we might have just been crazy hungry. We had done a lot of walking and was pretty late. That's what vacations are all about!
Then we stopped for gelato. Mine was caramel. YUM.
Here's mom with 'ol Revere himself. And up next we have the church he hung the lantern's in, Old North Church.
The pews were different than I would have imagined. They were the same as Christ Church in Philadelphia. They were made this way so the people could keep warm in the winter. They were able to close the doors and keep some of the wind out.
Not the original organ, but pretty impressive.
Another example of the city creeping in. This was about the best picture I could get. You really couldn't see all of it at once.
This tiny little house was just up the road from Old North Church. I have no idea what it is, but the tour guide for that German group you see was telling a lot about it. Anyone know?
We passed many different burial grounds. It was so interesting to see the old tombstones.
We finished seeing everything around 4 or 5 and decided to drive up to Marblehead to finally see the ocean. Since it was so foggy before, we hadn't technically seen it yet. And it was beautiful!
Mom demonstrating a beautiful rock.
Happy to be at the ocean!
Then we just drove back to our hotel to get ready for our last half day!
We researched fun breakfast spots for our lat day and found The Little Depot Diner.
Not sure if you can see on the menu, but it says "We hope you will come Chew-Chew with us again soon!" Bingo! I knew we had picked the perfect place.
There was even a little need a book-take a book station. I feel like it would have fit in well in Stars Hollow.
Here's mom waiting for our food. This place was tiny and so cute!
y-u-m. definitely worth the wait. Not much can compare with my beloved Old West, but the butter they gave me to go with that pancake was heaven. It turned that plain little toast into a cinnamon roll in no time.
Mom's came with baked beans, which I think is weird, but I think it's what they're known for.
We drove through Salem on our way to the airport and found this wonderful little cove tucked in a neighborhood. So beautiful! And people live about 50 feet from here so they see it every day!
Mom started climbing these rocks. Meanwhile I was standing far away hoping those rocks didn't belong to the house right next to it. Ever the rule follower, I was worried she wasn't supposed to be there. Mom just doesn't care. :)
We found this little guy but he was already in little crab heaven. Sad.
Then just a little drive to the airport and then a few (it seemed really long) hours later, home in blustery 40 degree Dallas! It was colder when we got home than the entire time we were in the northeast. Weather is weird.
Well, all said and done, it was a really good trip.
Just for kicks, here's a picture of us on our first vacation together, just 8(!) years ago. Still having fun all these years later.
