BOSTON - a vibrant cruise port

 Boston Massachusetts has a lot to offer. Cruisers are likely to be dropped off at Quincy Market by the shuttle bus. Everything is nearby. Faneuil Hall, the Freedom Trail museum and lecture centre is through the market in the next building. The wharf is in the other direction. In our video guide.

• 0:00 Introduction by Jean
• 0:15 Quincey Market & Faneuil Hall
• 1:54 Paul Revere House
• 2:35 Clough House
• 2:46 Captain Jackson's Historic Chocolate shop
• 3:37 Edes & Gill Printing Office
• 5:33 Boston Common
• 5:40 Massachusetts State House
• 5:51 Cheers
• 6:32 Long Wharf
• 7:50 Boston Tea Party Museum
• 8:47 Joes

TIPS FOR BOSTON from NANCY on our chat groups

On the Harbor Walk near the Tea Party Museum at the James Hook and Co, you can find the most authentic lobster rolls. It’s a little place on the water with picnic tables outside and to die for lobster rolls or steamed lobsters.

Also try Mike's Pastry in the Italian North End, famous for its cannoli.

Walking through the Boston Common, continue over to the Boston Garden and take a ride on Boston’s iconic Swan Boats, then continue for a stroll up Newbury Street.

 

THE DORIS VISITS FILM CONTINUES

Jean takes you to the visitor's centre in Faneuil Hall run by The National Park Service. She then starts you on the Freedom Trail which is a 2.5-mile-long walk that passes by 16 locations. It is marked out largely with a winding brick line. It was the idea of local journalist William Schofield in 1951, and by 1953, 40,000 people were walking the trail annually. She dives off and finds Cheers then takes you along the Wharf for a very rounded film of Boston. Note, Boston is the subject of our Halloween Podcast (S1E03) because it is famous for its ghosts and ghoulies!

1. Boston Common
2. Massachusetts State House
3. Park Street Church
4. Granary Burying Ground
5. King's Chapel and Burying Ground
6. Benjamin Franklin statue and the former site of Boston Latin School
7. Old Corner Bookstore
8. Old South Meeting House
9. Old State House
10. Site of the Boston Massacre
11. Faneuil Hall
12. Paul Revere House
13. Old North Church and Clough House.
14. Copp's Hill Burying Ground
15. USS Constitution
16. Bunker Hill Monument

Fred Olsen cruises to BOSTON click here.

Marella Cruises - Marella Central America Cruises

The Harborwalk connects over forty parks, a dozen museums, seven beaches and hundreds of restaurants and stores and stretches 43 miles along the Bay of what is officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the most populated state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. The variety the walk offers ranges from maritime industrial areas and working port operations to areas for swimming or fishing. You are never going to walk it all, not in a day, certainly not at a cruise stop, but it is interesting to know that it links so much. Mayor Raymond Flynn began this project in 1984 as a commitment to protect public access as the waterfront was redeveloped. Since then, the Harborwalk has emerged piece-by-piece and is nearing completion. Where possible it is a 12-foot pathway with public amenities such as parks, restaurants, stores, cultural institutions and importantly bathrooms. There is also a water transportation infrastructure.

There is a house tucked away by the old church that is on the Heritage trail, it is called Clough House and is a gem that deserves a special mention. It is an old house, built in 1712 by master bricklayer Ebenezer Clough as a home for himself and his wife. Now, inside there are two actors working their socks off all day, one demonstrating the old-fashioned way of making chocolate in Captain Jackson's old Chocolate shop. The other, Howard, is printing on an old double-press printing press as if in the old shop of Edes and Gill. He prints the Declaration of American Independence, which they then sell. Anyone can sign it and it and have it hung on the wall. Entrance to this house is free, which is amazing as most of the sites and places to visit on the coast charge, some quite regally, but here at Clough House they do have things to sell and ask for donations. They suggest three dollars!

Until 1806, the home was lived in by individual families, the first two generations of the Clough family, and then Joseph and Sarah Pierce and their families.  The home was inherited by their daughters and their politically active husbands, including Moses Grant, a participant in the Boston Tea Party.  It was purchased in 1959 by the Old North Foundation for the purpose of showing the past as a working interpretative space. 

Cheers, the new bar is a rebuild of the original bar, The Bull and Finch Pub, that was here in 1981 and inspired the writers to go off and write the sitcom which is now part of popular modern history. The interiors were obviously shot in a studio built in Los Angeles, but this is the exterior that was used over and over again. The show was nearly canned as the first series failed to gain an audience; it ranked nearly last in the ratings. The show ran from 1982 to 1993 and reached number seven on the charts and is listed as one of NBC's best all-time shows. A staff writer on the show who later joined the production team, David Lawrence Angell was on the first plane to hit the World Trade Centre in 2001.

Boston has become a fun young city with much to offer. Inland there is another path, a brick line as Dorothy might follow in the Wizard or Freedom, because it is the Freedom Trail with many stops of interest from the Boston Massacre, to the Tea Party. From the real Cheers bar to the one at Quincy Market, from Museums to lectures and information by Park Rangers, Boston is a city you can walk around. Here is our overview film. The guide to Boston.