Saturday 4 May, 2013

Today we took the hotel shuttle into Boston, as we are staying in Cambridge, a 10 min ride along the turnpike. We walked through the Boston Public Gardens, the oldest botanical gardens in the nation. The tulips were in bloom everywhere and were just beautiful. There was a lovely lake with a small walking bridge, (replica of London Bridge), lots of pathways, a statue of George Washington and swan boats that have been operating by the same family since 1870. Next to that was the Boston Commons, the nation's first public park. It is just wonderful to see so much green space in the middle of the city.
We then joined "the Photo Walk of The Freedom Trail" tour during which Saba not only explains the history of many sites on the trail but also gives some different ideas for photographing the sites. It was interesting but I found it difficult to concentrate on both the history and the photography.
We stopped at the Granary Burying Ground of the 1600's where several signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried as well as Paul Revere. The headstones used to correspond to where people were buried but when the lawn mower was invented the caretaker decided to move all the headstones more into straight rows so that it was easier to mow. Headstones have a skull, winged skulls or angels on them.
The Old South Meeting House was the venue for the meeting when the enraged citizens considered the new British tax on tea, and immediately went and dumped tea which would be worth one million dollars in today's money.
After the tour we wandered around the waterfront and had a lobster lunch at Legal Seafood. Good but not great but we were hungry as it was well after 2 when we went to the restaurant.
Again very cold...it was supposed to be 15C but I'm sure it never got there, more like 5 with wind that blew right through you!