{"id":2532,"date":"2017-09-17T19:08:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T02:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/?p=2532"},"modified":"2017-09-17T19:08:55","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T02:08:55","slug":"boston-freedom-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/2017\/09\/17\/boston-freedom-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Freedom Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Made our way into Boston looking for the Commons, once there, noticed an underground parking garage right underneath the park.\u00a0 Couldn’t have been easier to park in downtown Boston.\u00a0\u00a0 Came up near the Frog Pond and headed off to find the visitor center and hopefully a good map.\u00a0\u00a0 There were a lot of people in the park.\u00a0\u00a0 You’d think we were in Balboa Park on a Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

We parked and walked up the stairs to the surface and headed toward the \"\"<\/a>visitor center to pick up a map of the trail.\u00a0\u00a0 While we were over there a walking tour was starting and after buying a map, we followed them out toward the state house.\u00a0\u00a0 When the lady leading the tour started shouting at the top of her lungs in a very shrill voice, we decided to get as far away from her as possible.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We made our way to the state house, putting some distance from the screeching.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After taking a couple pics there, we walked over to the Granary Cemetery. \u00a0 There were lots of extremely old headstones there, quite a few appeared to be buried too far down in the \"\"<\/a>dirt.\u00a0 Almost all were made from a brown stone that was difficult to read in the shade of the big trees there. \u00a0 There were some very surprising things on a few of the headstones I stopped and looked at. \u00a0 Winged Sculls was an odd theme on quite a few of them.\u00a0 Not sure what that was all about yet. \u00a0Something to look up when I get time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Not far down the trail from there was the King’s Chapel and another old cemetery with similar headstones, again the winged sculls on quite a few. \u00a0 \u00a0 Passed the old book shop and the old meeting house and picked up some Chipotle takeout and had a short picnic on the corner of School and Washington streets where there were some tables and chairs set up in a small town square (in the shape of a triangle).<\/p>\n

After the respite we headed toward the old state house building and the site \"\"<\/a>of the Boston massacre.\u00a0 There was a large round marker on the massacre site.\u00a0 Next on the trail was Fanuel Hall, which to me was just another chatchky shop, only on a much grander scale.\u00a0 Out the back and we walked thru the Quincy market. \u00a0There was a lot of very nice looking produce stacked in all the sidewalk stalls.<\/p>\n

Across the street from there was an unexpected park. \u00a0It wasn’t on the map we had.\u00a0 Turns out it was very new. \u00a0They had under-grounded a highway and made a park on top.\u00a0\u00a0 Just past there was the north end of Boston,\u00a0 where the \"\"<\/a>Italian food smells were everywhere.\u00a0 I kept thinking about the old Prince Spaghetti Company commercials from my childhood as we walked thru there to the Paul Revere House, then on to the Old North Church where “one if by land, two if by sea” became famous. \u00a0 [Crazy to think I stood in the actual church where that happened!]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Just before getting to the church, there was a large statue of Paul Revere riding his horse on a wide promenade.\u00a0\u00a0 We walked by another cemetery and then over the rickety Charlestown bridge, heading toward \"\"<\/a>the Bunker Hill monument.\u00a0\u00a0 I had seen pictures of the monument but never of the statue in front of it.\u00a0\u00a0 A very elegant and dashing portrayal of the commander from the battle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After getting a few pics there,\u00a0 it was nice to be going downhill toward the USS Constitution.\u00a0\u00a0 Once there, I walked over to see if we could get on the ship, but the line was a couple hours long and my feet were already barking at me.\u00a0 So I snapped a couple pics and we took an Uber back to the park to get the car. \u00a0[Thank God he was OK with taking the dogs in the car because I couldn’t walk another step!!!]<\/p>\n

When we drove out of the garage, I noticed my Fitbit said we had walked 7.5 miles, but I had read somewhere the trail was 2.5 miles long.\u00a0 I am not sure why we walked so much farther, but our feet were sure tired!!<\/p>\n

Before we drove back to the campground, we headed over toward Cambridge\"\"<\/a> to see the area Harvard resides in.\u00a0\u00a0 It was much nicer than I expected.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t think I have ever seen so much brickwork.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A couple days later we drove back to the same garage and walked thru the commons to another Mexican place for lunch where I asked if we could bring in the pups and they said yes, we could.\u00a0\u00a0 Afterward we headed over to the Boston Public Garden for a stroll.\u00a0\u00a0 The pups went nuts as there were lots of \"\"<\/a>squirrels to bark at while we watched the swan boats in the lake.\u00a0\u00a0 I thought it was pretty nice there with all the trees, flowers and geese. \u00a0It was a beautiful place to relax and enjoy the scenery. \u00a0 I hadn’t known the swan boats are pedal powered by the operator sitting in the back of each boat.\u00a0 They must get a good workout every day!<\/p>\n

We found this very oddly worded sign all around the Boston area.\u00a0\u00a0 Thickly Settled…\u00a0\u00a0 So we finally took a picture of one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Made our way into Boston looking for the Commons, once there, noticed an underground parking garage right underneath the park.\u00a0 Couldn’t have been easier to park in downtown Boston.\u00a0\u00a0 Came up near the Frog Pond and headed off to find the visitor center and hopefully a good map.\u00a0\u00a0 There were a lot of people in … <\/p>\n

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