Boston - walking tour of the North End

October 2009. Boston.

OK, this should be my last entry about the Boston trip, barring some major thing that I realize later that I completely forgot to talk about. (Yeah, I know, I haven't talked about the concert itself, but I don't have much to say. It was awesome, and the meet-and-greet was especially fun. And besides, someone else does great write-ups about Rockapella concerts, so there's no need for me to do one.)


So the day after the concert, we decided to do a little sightseeing around Boston. Our hotel wasn't too far from a subway station, so we made our way over there and took the necessary trains to our destination. Well, as it turned out, we ended up taking a couple of trains. We only had like 4 stops to the station we needed to get off at. We took a train, but it turned out that it was only going to two more stations before being taken off, so we got off 2 stations away from where we needed to be. Then we got on another train, but THAT train was only going to the next station before being taken off, so we got off 1 station away from where we needed to be. And we waited for the next train. And the next train came by and dropped off its passengers because it was the last stop for that train. Great, we were APPARENTLY stuck at the station where trains go to die. We were at that station for maybe 10 minutes or so before a train came by that would actually take us to the next station, so we got on it. We had to take 3 trains to go 4 stops. Ugh.

We had finally arrived at our destination - the North End. We wandered a bit on the way, but our first stop was at the Old North Church.

Appropriately, there was a large statue of Paul Revere at the courtyard entrance to the grounds of the Old North Church.



Statue of Paul Revere. The church itself is barely visible against the background of the sky.


In the courtyard, there were various informational things about Paul Revere and the other players in the whole "one if by land, two if by sea" saga.

And then, it was onto the grounds of the Old North Church.



Gate onto Old North Church grounds.


The church itself is pretty amazing. It's beautiful, but it's also pretty awe-inspiring to think about the history of the place.



Inside the Old North Church.


There was a guy inside who gave a little talk about the history of the church, and he invited us to take seats inside the pews. They were actually boxes, which was pretty cool.



View from inside one of the box pews.


After the talk, we had a chance to walk around the church, though we weren't allowed to go up to the second floor. But the organ looked amazing.



The organ at the Old North Church.


I hadn't known that the church was still operating as a regular church. I think it would be really cool to attend an actual service there. If I find myself in Boston again, it's something I'll definitely try to do at that time.


After spending some time wandering around inside the church, we went to the gift shop next door. I've already written about that particular experience.



We wandered around a bit more and then realized that Paul Revere's house was nearby, so we headed over there.


On the way, we happened to pass a group of people on Segways. I have no idea why they were on them, but they caught my attention because the husband and I took a Segway tour of part of Epcot when we were at Walt Disney World a couple years ago, and I *loved* the Segway.







There was a fee to go inside Paul Revere's house and the yard area, and we didn't really have a lot of time, so we decided not to do that.



The front of Paul Revere's house.


We decided to stop for brunch at that point. Afterward, we then wandered over to Faneuil Hall marketplace.



There were a line of carriages available for rides. I thought this one was particularly pretty. It reminded me of a lovely horse and carriage ride that the husband and I took through Central Park a couple years ago.


We then went inside the Great Hall.



Inside the Great Hall at Faneuil Hall.



We walked by Sam's Cafe and Cheers.


We walked around some more, and then we ended up at the harbor, and we looked around there.



Doesn't this woman have a nice backpack?



This was on the harbor. I have no idea why. It was just funny.


It was then time to head back to the hotel. We ended up having a difficult time finding a subway station, so we wandered around a bit more than we had planned in search of one, but we eventually located one and didn't run into the same train problems we'd encountered early that morning. Then, it was off to the airport to wait for our flight back to Los Angeles.