Toads Go East - Day 8

Welcome to Boston

It's Saturday so it must be Boston.

We'd left this trip until the weekend because we knew it would be easier to get parked, given that a lot of the office block parking garages have a relatively low flat rate weekend charge. So we set off in search of the city's financial district and a free-form kind of day with no set plans other than to see this big American city. Being socially responsible Toads, we had looked at getting the train in but, at over $100 for the four of us, as well as the relative restrictiveness of being tied to a timetable, we decided against it, and we were quite pleased that we opted for the car in the end. Anyway, I've driven in London, Toronto, Atlanta and New Orleans; how hard could Boston be?

The highways leading to Boston were busy, given that it was a Saturday morning with no commuters about. The traffic became heavier the closer we were to the big city and we inevitably ended up in a four lane crawl as we neared the downtown districts. The trusty Satnav had us leave the crowds on the highway and plunged us down into a forest of concrete pillars that supported the motorways above. We popped up on Atlantic Avenue, along the waterfront, before turning into the relative calm of the financial district. In amongst the skyscrapers the roads seemed narrow and dark but we navigated our way successfully to Oliver Street and some public parking underneath of of those great office towers in Post Office Square. It was $15 for the day, which wasn't so bad for central Boston, and having parked we had the luxury of emerging into the street through the plush lobby of the offices of an accountancy firm, which was a real novelty.

Out on the side walk it was hot, thirty-one degrees Celsius today, but there were few people about so we were able to look around and enjoy the architecture, which was an eclectic mix of old and new. We're always taken with Art Deco and Art Nouveau buildings and there were plenty of those in amongst the modern steel and glass towers. One particular building, the John W. McCormack Post Office and Court House, was a 1933 Art Deco delight with some iconography depicting what I thought were symbols of Mussolini's fascist regime; bundles of sticks tied together with a spear in the middle. I wasn't far off as a little bit of research revealed them to be Fasces, symbols of ancient Etruscan civilisation, later passed on to Roman culture. Mussolini did indeed adopt such a symbol but it was with an axe and was supposed to represent power through collective strength, which I suppose was the motif for this building. Try this link if you want to read more.

Back in the real world, we strolled through the financial district, in the opposite direction to the one we intended, and enjoyed what we saw. I have to give credit to Mrs T who did suggest that we might have needed to turn left instead of right  at the corner of Post Office Square to get to the waterfront, but in going wrong, we did at least get to see some aspects of the city without the tourist throng. 

We ended up at Boston Common, which is on Boston's Freedom Trail (I never did find out any more about that) and certainly a place that wasn't devoid of tourists. From there we walked down past the First Church, the old City Hall and to a little square fronting the original Meeting House. Again, a lack of research on my part means that I have very little to tell you about it; sorry! It was here that Mrs T and the tadpoles watched "a bunch of black guys dancing" whilst I mooched about the Irish Potato Famine memorial, which was surprisingly interesting and served to me remind me of my Irish ancestry. It was reported to me that Mrs T squeezed the bottom of one of the young street entertainers so I guess that was a successful diversion for her. And him!

We also used a nice little bagel cafe there for lunch. It wasn't cheap, as you might expect, but the bagels were good and the small tadpole was quite taken with the serving staff who took time to help her choose. Bostonians are nice folk, it seems.

After feeding, we made our way past the State House and on towards the waterfront. In State Street I just happened to glance into the lobby of a building known as "75 State Street" - OMG! as the youngsters like to say.

...and this is just the lobby of 75 State Street

I just had a look at this link and discovered that it was completed in 1988 - no wonder it looked in such good nick. Anyway, they have our staircase railings.

We admired the Custom House (with the city's first skyscraper) before eventually finding the water, close to the Aquarium. Boston Harbour was busy with boats of all sizes and we were a bit surprised to see the very large vessels that sail from there to go and do the whale watching thing that we did in the week from Plymouth. These boats take up to 500 people and I can't imagine it being quite the same experience when shared with so many others. It was at this point that the tadpoles started moaning about wanting to go home, and to be fair it was very, very hot there. However, perhaps anticipating my disappointment, Mrs T suggested that we visit Salem, the place of the witch trials, seeing as how it wasn't so far north of where we were. No trip to Massachusetts would be complete without a trip to Salem, she said, and as it turned out, she was right.

It took a while for the Satnav to kick in around all those skyscrapers so we did a small tour of Atlantic Avenue before finding our way onto the Interstate and into the tunnels under Boston. It was busy but moving and we emerged after a few minutes to cross the Charles River on an impressive new bridge. Then we made our way north, along with many thousands of others, and let the Satnav guide us. We hit a few crawling sections and when off the Interstate system, relied on some (fortunately) consistent signs that took us right into Salem itself and the Mall parking lot which was next to the Visitor Center. Being us, we had arrived just twenty-five minutes before the place closed but the earnest young Parks Ranger (it's run by the National Parks Service) gave us a run down of places to visit which were free and/or open at that time in the evening. 

I knew very little about Salem other than some general stuff about witch trials and executions in the late 1600s. The town, though, was a lovely little former port that has many old houses, plenty of documented heritage and not all of it to do with witches. Certainly the locals trade on the witch thing, even to the extent of having a thriving Harry Potter shop (get the connection?), but then why not? It certainly gets the tourists off the Interstate and spending their money in the town. 

Mrs T had a paddle in the bay, we saw the replica tall ship, "Friendship of Salem", the old docks, the Custom House and many, many witch related shops and attractions. We had a recommendation from the young lady in the Harry Potter shop (who actually looked like Thelma from Scooby Doo - how's that for mixing your popular culture?) to visit a veggie restaurant. Fair dos to Mrs T who dutifully marched with us to the restaurant in the full knowledge that the rest of us would be appalled and refuse to eat there. We ended up in a place called Rockerfeller's (or some such) and had an ordinary meal that Mrs T didn't really enjoy. Your time will come Mother Toad!

Afterwards we threaded our way through the many and various witch and ghost walking tours that were taking place in the dimpsy light of the evening. We took in the Witch Trials memorial, a tasteful and poignant attempt to remember the events that have made the town famous, and the old graveyard which had stones marking a couple of the trial judges and one of the original group of pilgrims from the Mayflower. I have to say that the  graveyard was quite well maintained and the oldest stones had been set in newer, more protective granite casings; a nice touch but I don't know by whom.

So that was the day. We headed straight through downtown Boston on the way home and negotiated the high speed tunnels again, as well as the metropolitan highway network which was so busy, even at 9 pm on a Saturday night. We had to make a slight detour to Dairy Queen in Middleboro as there was no way we were going to bed without ice cream as it isn't natural, but we arrived back at Towed Haul safely, even if just a tad knackered.

Tomorrow is a quiet day (I think) so stay tuned, Toad fans, for more (less) exciting adventures.