Day 2 in Boston, MA
Day two we actually decided to go to Boston, MA – one of the many places in New England that has a part of our hearts. It’s a place that has so much history and many delicious restaurants to enjoy that for us it was no brainer to visit “Beantown” on our trip. Plus, the weather was reported to be a less humid day, which we figured would make walking in the city that day as opposed to others even better.
We grabbed our traditional bite to eat from the hotel and headed about an 1hr and a half away to Boston. We said that we would try to stop at some of the places we did not get a chance to our first trip up that way when we went to Cape Cod for our anniversary.
One of those stops included the Hahvad Tour.
The Hahvad Tour is an unofficial tour of Harvard University that’s led by actual Harvard students. The only thing that makes it unofficial is that it’s not led by or associated with Harvard University, aside from the student participants who are tour guides. It’s marketed as being a theatrical performance where you learn about Harvard from the perspective of students and the “tea” behind the school.
We just missed a tour group that went out that day, so while we waited for the next group to go out, we grabbed coffee at Milk Bar.
I had another outfit planned but decided to wear this one because I wanted to be comfortable since I knew we would be walking a lot. It’s a super cute top, but the wrinkles from the folds in the suitcase made me realize that I should probably invest in a steamer.
But, I digress.
I have never done an official Harvard tour, but this one was definitely entertaining and informative. I learned a lot about the school and about some of it’s alumni, which was really great. We will be doing a post on that in the next few months sharing what you can expect (without giving the good stuff away, of course).
After walking for a few hours, we decided to grab lunch so I could sit for a little, drive into the city and park in a lot close to some of the historical sites along the Freedom Trail, so that way it give us a chance to rest for a bit.
We made the mistake of parking right smack dab in the Financial District. Perhaps we were too distracted or trying to find what we perceived to be the best spot for walking the trail, but we ended up paying $42 for parking. Yup, $42! I would be amiss if I didn’t mention that as a warning to any of you who are planning to visit the city soon. Maybe it’s not a lot for others, but for us, $42 felt like a waste of money – especially once we found out that to park on the waterfront we could’ve paid $20 instead. Well, you live and you learn.
That didn’t stop our fun, however, as we were determined to enjoy our day and make the most of that $42 parking. We were going to walk and see what we could, even if that meant we’d have to take a pain reliever by the end of the night.
We spent some time walking through Faneuil Hall, exploring the market space and learning some history through the exhibit there. We then ventured to the other exhibits in the building and the Great Hall where we learned some more about some of the people who gave speeches there. There’s too much that we learned in Faneuil Hall to disclose in this post, but I will say that if you’re a history buff as well, you’ll enjoy it. Plus it’s FREE!
After that, we spent some time walking through Quincy Market, we ventured to the waterfront where we walked around, made our way to North End to walk around for a bit more and then we ventured back to Quincy Market where we ate at Cheers. While there is a Cheers where the show was actually filmed at and based off of in Boston, we went to the one located in Quincy Market, which was not the original. The original is located in Beacon Hill.
I wasn’t that hungry by the time dinner came so I got spinach and artichoke dip while Han had pasta. I can’t remember the name of it, but it looked amazing.
After dinner, we headed to Boston Public Gardens to walk around some more, snap photographs, and enjoy the views before heading back to our hotel for the evening.
We did a lot of walking during our trip to Boston, but it was worth it. Even though we spent more than we wanted on parking, we saved more than we did some of the other days in experiences because everything we did, aside from the tour and the food, was free!
