Boston & Cape Cod Road Trip - October 2016 - Day 3 - Boston Common & Harvard

[Erial]

Boston & Cape Cod Road Trip
23rd October 2016
Day 3 - Boston Common & Harvard

Previous: Boston Duck Tour & Freedom Trail

We woke up after having had quite a disturbed night’s sleep. There were lots of voices at midnight in corridor and lots of banging of doors. Our guess was that because it was a Saturday night the hotel had hosted a wedding or party on their roof top bar as it had signs up saying ‘private function’. In the early hours we’d also heard the entire conversation of the bloke in next room who was having a very loud telephone argument with who we assumed must be his wife. We found it hard to keep a straight face when we ended up getting in the same lift as him the next morning. All of this went in my complaint email when we got home.

We open our curtains this morning and Wow! What a different 24 hours can make. This morning we were greeted by blue skies and sunshine.

We decided to go an have a little nosey at the roof top bar that had yesterday been marked as ‘private function’. What a beautiful area. I bet it is stunning in the summer!

We decided to Google somewhere close by for breakfast and the closest place was called Thornton’s and was just a few metres down from the hotel. We got dressed and were there quite early but there was a queue 40 people deep! It’s clearly a popular place! We quickly changed our plans – we had too much to do to get in such a queue – and made our way back into the Prudential Centre and back to Dunki Donuts for one of their breakfast muffins.

As there was a subway station right outside our hotel we decided to get ourselves a 24 subway ‘T Card’. The Boston subway is colour coded and the names are the colours so it makes it so easy to navigate.

We caught the ‘Green’ subway from outside our hotel/the Prudential centre over to Boston Common. We were amazed that when the subway turned up it was actually an underground tram of just two carriages and nothing like an underground train that we’d expected. The driver even gave me a wave when I took the photo!

Once at Boston Common we decided to do a spot of shopping. We nipped in to Bath & Body Works but only bought a couple of things as we didn’t want to overfill out cases until we had a car. It did, however, give us some vouchers to use later in the holiday.

We decided to give Macy’s a miss. We’d given them too much of our money back in May in New York. The girls spotted a Primary and so wanted to compare it to ours. It was pretty much identical. I did like the sign on the way in though.

We just bought some gloves for me, a woolly hat for Abi and so thick grey school tights. The tights seem a bit of a random purchase I know but it is unbelievably hard to buy thick denier plain grey tights for anyone over the age of 10!

Purchases made we made our way onto the common. It was absolutely beautiful and was just what I imagined it would look like in the fall.

We decided to take the opportunity to do some geocaching. We do quite a bit of geocaching at home and its always exciting for the kids to find caches when we’re on holiday.

We wandered around soaking up the atmosphere and just generally enjoying the common.

We eventually found a play area so settled down here for a while whilst Izzy played and I facetimed my mum and sister back home.

Izzy found some more of her copper animals.

We walked around the Frog Pond and I imagine this gets incredibly busy in the summer. Today it was incredibly peaceful and beautiful.

We found a few more geocaches and Izzy was delighted by the friendly squirrel and took hundreds of photos of them!

At the bottom end of the Common, near to the Cheers bar we found a little deli where we grabbed some lunch. We ate our lunch sat on a bench people and dog watching. As you would expect in such a beautiful park on a Sunday there were a lot of people out walking their dogs.

Continued below...

[Erial]

After lunch we walked past the Cheers Bar and into Boston Public Park (different but next to the Common). We spotted some Halloween decorations on the way.

In the park Izzy spotted more copper animals This time a family of ducks.

The park was just idyllic and I could have spent the entire afternoon here just soaking up the sun and watching the world go by.

However, we’d promised Abi that we’d go and visit Harvard University and so this was where we caught a subway to next. This time we caught the ‘Red’ line and this subway was more like the traditional subway trains we’re used to. We always found the locals incredibly helpful and every time we caught a subway we were stopped by locals and asked if we needed any help.

For some reason I took absolutely no photos here, so apologies for that.

The area around Harvard square was VERY busy. The rest of Boston had been relatively quiet but here it was rammed! The main purpose of our visit though was to go to the university store and pick up hoodies for the girls and a t-shirt for my sister for Christmas. At a nearby shop Jeff managed to get himself an MiT one. I have to admit that Harvard wasn’t was pretty as I expected but perhaps we stuck to the wrong area. Abi, however, thought it was amazing and would love to be able to go to university there so perhaps I’m just old and the whole student vibe thing just doesn’t do it for me any more!

Photos with hoodies once we got home!

I did try to go to Starbuck to get my Cambridge ‘You Are Here’ mug but they were queuing out the door. I decided to give it a miss and go back to the original Starbucks we’d been in yesterday. After all now I’d actually been to Cambridge I could justify buying one!

After a little rest in the park watching student life go by we decided that we needed to head back to the hotel with all of our shopping.

After a freshen up we decided that we’d make the long walk (all 20 yards of it) across the road to the Cheescake Factory for dinner. We’d never eaten in a Cheesecake Factory but knew that lots of Dibbers raved about the one at the Florida Mall and so we wanted to see what we were missing.

You can see our hotel through the door!

We had an absolutely amazing meal with fabulous service. I even managed to get another strawberry daiquiri – I’m nothing if not predictable.

However we were too full to eat cheesecake and so we had to have it to go – there was no way we were missing out. We ate it before bedtime and it was yummy!

We’d had an absolutely wonderful day with perfect weather and it had been just how I’d imagined Boston would be in the fall. We were sad that we would be leaving Boston in the morning but were also excited about the next stage of our adventure.

Tomorrow: Salem

Thanks for reading.
Claire
x

[FloRidaLvr]

Enjoying your trip report , thanks !

[Sparksy72]

Wow! It does make a difference when the sun is shining, your Boston Common pics are beautiful. When researching the hotels, I was so pleased to see a Cheesecake Factory, we love it in Orlando. Thai is brilliant that you had a good first visit too. Strawberry Daiquiri's are the best! 😊

[Erial]

Originally Posted by FloRidaLvr

Enjoying your trip report , thanks !

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Thank you!

Originally Posted by Sparksy72

Wow! It does make a difference when the sun is shining, your Boston Common pics are beautiful. When researching the hotels, I was so pleased to see a Cheesecake Factory, we love it in Orlando. Thai is brilliant that you had a good first visit too. Strawberry Daiquiri's are the best! 😊

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Yes, the sunshine made a world of difference. Boston Common and the park are absolutely stunning and the autumn colours made it look even prettier.

Thank you for continuing to read.
Claire
x

[Melbatb]

Glad to see the appearance of the sun - you managed a lot again!

[Pussycat Doll]

I love the look of Boston Common, thanks for posting.

[Erial]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Glad to see the appearance of the sun - you managed a lot again!

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Originally Posted by Pussycat Doll

I love the look of Boston Common, thanks for posting.

See more...

Thanks guys. I can't recommend Boston Common enough. I think to see it in the autumn is pretty special too. Those fall colours are just stunning!

Thanks for reading.
Claire
x

[tocpe321]

Great day. Glad the weather improved!

Brings back lots of memories. We ate in Thorntons and it was really nice. Glad you made it to Cheesecake Factory.

We stayed in August and the pool area on the roof was really busy.

[disney owl]

great photos thnks