Following our stop at Niagra Falls and a good night of sleep in New York, we filled up on our free hotel breakfast and hit the road for the next stage of our journey.
Destination? Boston!
We had a full 7+ hours of travel from Niagra Falls to Boston, but decided to take a short detour. When we got our travel map for Christmas, we had a family discussion about which states the kids most wanted to visit. Rhode Island was a top state on Adelie's list. Since Boston is a short drive from Rhode Island, we popped down into Rhode Island for dinner before heading into Boston so that Adelie could mark it off her list.
The restaurant I had found in Providence, RI (Three Sisters) that looked like a winner had stopped serving food before we arrived. (Grrrr...) Luckily, it was located across the street from this great park. The kids played on the playground while I made us a make-shift dinner of PB & J and fruit from the car. Then we got some yummy ice cream (from the restaurant that was no longer serving food), walked on a nice walking path right across from the park, soaked in the beautiful weather and time out of the van, and enjoyed the fact that Rhode Island drivers always stop for pedestrians trying to cross the road.
After our Rhode Island pit-stop, we loaded up and finished the journey to Boston. We checked into our hotel, and Briggs was thrilled to discover we had a perfect view of Boston's subway/elevated train (the T). We settled in for a good night of rest so we'd be ready for our full day of Boston exploration.
We woke the kids up a little early the next morning so we could enjoy our free hotel breakfast (the best of the trip) and walk from our hotel to start our day off with a Duck Boat tour of Boston. It was a highlight of the day for the whole family.
The Duck Boat is an amphibious vehicle that took us on a tour around Boston, ending in the Charles River.
The 80 minute tour covered many of the highlights of Boston, our tour guide was funny and very informative, and the kids even got to the drive the boat for a bit along the Charles River. We all really enjoyed our start to the day!
Following our tour, we walked from the Museum of Science (where our tour started and ended) to the Bunker Hill Monument to follow the Freedom Trail to see all the historical sites in Boston.
Here we are standing at the beginning (or ending, since we were starting at what is traditionally the end) of the Freedom Trail. Ready for our 2.5 mile historical walking tour of Boston.
I feel like this photo of the Bunker Hill Monument is a good reflection of our time on the Freedom Trail. If you zoom in, you can see Zach and Staley intently and thoroughly reading the placard while Adelie and Briggs are just sitting on the ground waiting for them to be done...while I take pictures.
Adelie's favorite part of the day was running ahead to see where the Freedom Trail went and then waving us along saying, "Freedom Trail, this way! Freedom Trail, this way!"
Briggs' preferred activity was complaining about his legs being tired and asking for piggy back rides.
Boston is a really interesting city. It has lots of old buildings and narrow cobblestone streets and historical significance, but it's also still a large, metropolitan city. So sites like this...a cool old street with big modern buildings in the background...are common.
Our weather was beautiful on our Boston day. The day before we arrived, Boston's temperatures were close to 90 degrees, but our day was in the high 60's and sunny. We stopped for a scrumptious lunch in the North End (Little Italy) of Boston at Bencotto's. The pasta we ordered was SO good! And we got really lucky with our timing. We got seated immediately at the last available outdoor table. By the time we left, there were lots of people waiting for a table. After lunch we grabbed some yummy cannolis at Modern Pastries and enjoyed them in a nearby park.
We continued along the Freedom Trail, seeing sites like The Old North Church, the Paul Revere House, cemeteries where famous people like Samuel Adams and John Hancock are buried, the USS Constitution, and the old State House. The Freedom Trail ends in Boston Common, a large public garden where the kids played on a playground for a little bit.
We then headed over to the Public Garden, a gorgeous public botanical garden, where we took a swan boat ride around the pond. (If you've ever read 'Make Way for Ducklings', you'll know about the Public Garden and the swan boats.)
The Boston Public Garden was another highlight for the whole family. It was lovely and relaxing and a fun place to decompress a bit after our big day of exploring the city. (We also found the bronze statues in the garden of Mrs. Mallard and her 8 little ducklings from 'Make Way for Ducklings.')
Although we didn't eat dinner at the Cheers restaurant, we stopped for a quick photo op before walking to Fanuil Hall (a big shopping/dining area in downtown Boston) and enjoyed dinner on the patio at Ned Devine's Irish pub. We then checked out the harbor and finished off our day with one member of the family's top request...
riding the T-train back to our hotel.
When it was all said and done, we walked over 11 miles while exploring the entire city of Boston. It was a fun, full, exhausting (especially for the youngest member of our party) day. We were all ready for a good night of sleep!
The next morning, we enjoyed another filling hotel breakfast and then decided to make a quick stop by the Harvard campus since we were staying just a few miles from it.
We wandered around the campus (watching them prepare for a big graduation), got our picture taken with the famous John Harvard statue (we did NOT touch his shoe), and looked up statistics of just how difficult it is to get into Harvard...while the kids all determined which Ivy League school they would like to attend. After our brief stop, we hopped back in the van to make our way to the final destination of our trip.
Thanks for the fun, Boston!
Maine, here we come!!
