August 13-15
It was time to leave luscious New London, on a journey that would finally take us to Old London. Mary, John and Scarlet (their Westie) drove us to the New London bus stop, where we boarded the busy coach, for the two and a half hour ride to Boston South Station.
Suddenly transposed from the tranquil woods of New Hampshire to the busy, jostling inner city roads of Boston, was quite a jolt. Shouldering our rucksacks we navigated the thronging pavements and passing, speeding vehicles in a surprisingly hot and humid atmosphere. It was Sunday afternoon, and the place was buzzing with people and the sound of music.
Taking a break on or way, we rested at a Tatte’s Bakery – seemingly quite the place to go in Boston! We found a second one, by chance, when looking for breakfast, on our wanderings around Back Bay, the next day.
The hotel was a grand affair (with bijou rooms), in a grand area, near Boston Common and Public Gardens. Reassuringly sturdy buildings and wide roads. We stayed two nights, each night dining in a grand restaurant, mixing Irish and Italian with nineteenth century elegance.
Our only full day, we decided to spend taking in the ‘feel’ of the city of Boston. We started at the Boston Public Gardens, which we thought to be an absolute delight. Manicured flower and shrub beds, shady trees, fountains, statues and a delightful little lake.
This led us to the lovely Commonwealth Avenue, a long, long narrow park, with mature trees, punctuated with statues, and lined with beautiful brown stone buildings. Genteel, is the word for it.
The aim was to get to the Back Bay Fens, a large park area, with a stunningly well kept ‘garden allotment’ area, immaculately tended by their respective owners. The park surrounds the ‘Muddy River’, a body of water guarded by flocks of Canadian geese. We both noted that, standing on a little hump-backed bridge, it reminded us very much of a view from a similar bridge in St. James Park, in London.
Museum of Fine Arts Not St. James’ Park Lovely allotments
Our next destination was the Charles River Esplanade. Hmm. Tricky. Google Maps agreed, scratched its digital head and gave up. Between us and the esplanade was a seemingly endless expanse of motorways and slip-roads, with four – five lanes of roaring traffic incessantly gushing past and no pavements. How on earth do we cross this?
Hmmm… how do we get over this?
We found ourselves in the middle of this concrete spaghetti, fearing the we would never get out alive! As this blog post witnesses, we did. But it was close….
Once descended onto the esplanade, it was lovely. The Charles River was wide, with fresh breezes propelling a gathering of small sailing boats and choppy water. A delight. There were lilies in the ponds.
Making our way back, Peter had noticed that a pub called ‘Cheers’, was on the way. Famous because of the popular television series, it would be fun to slip in and have a cheeky beer….
None of that! Even an external photo opportunity was foiled, as there were building works covering the pub. A queue stood patiently outside, waiting their turn to be let inside to the ‘Cheers Tourist Shop’. No cheeky beer was had.
Our final morning saw us having a third visit to Tatte’s Bakery, for breakfast, before donning our rucksacks and finding the Arlington Metro station. Two stops on the deliciously antiquated Green Line, changing for another two stops on the more modern Red line. This took us back to the Boston South Station, where we had started our Boston visit a couple of days earlier.
It was not at all straightforward finding an escalator or elevator to ascend to the station from the “T”, anxious as we were to avoid unnecessarily carrying our rucksacks up long flights of stairs. We boarded the Acela train and waved goodbye to a lovely visit to Boston.
We found an elevator! South Boston Station
In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; It is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; the same Principle lives in us.
So glad you enjoyed our little city and got to see some of the less touristy spots such as the Fenway allotments/“community gardens”—Rebecca’s older sisters went to a day care center near there when they were tiny little girls! Hope you saw the swan boats in the Public Garden. Next time perhaps Becca and I can be tourguides to all of you! (And Tatte is indeed nice, back in 2019 we took Sarah and Ali’s family to the one in Harvard Square and they liked it too!)