Boston & Cape Cod Road Trip - October 2016 - Day 4 - Salem

[Erial]

Boston & Cape Cod Road Trip
24th October 2016
Day 4 - Salem

Previous - Boston Common & Harvard

We woke up to another sunny morning in Boston. For breakfast we finished off the snacks we had in our room – a healthy combination of orange juice and biscuits.

We’d originally planned to catch a taxi back to the airport which was where we were due to pick a car up from for the next leg of our trip. However, our subway card was still valid and we’d been so impressed with the subways yesterday that we thought we’d go back to the airport that way. Their subways are so easy to use and clean – even the lifts. In New York we’d had to used lifts a couple of times as my daughter had a knee injury and the lift always stunk and were just gross. Boston was the complete opposite.

You can see that the exit to the subway is literally outside the hotel!

So we said goodbye to our hotel and made the easy journey to collect our car. Abi was rocking the student look and would easily fit in with the Harvard crowd I reckon!

The car hire garage at Boston Logan airport is in a separate building on a circular loop from the terminals. It is very easy to get to.

After unsuccessfully trying to sell us lots of upgrades at the hire desk we finally went to pick up our car. We were Given a large KIA which looked more like a full size SUV to me – I wasn’t complaining though, more space for shopping!

I spent a few minutes familiarising myself with car. I’m getting much better at this after my meltdown in Florida in 2014 when I didn’t get the car I was expecting.

We got the sat nav set up. We’d brought our old sat nav from home and had pre-programmed everywhere we wanted to go. Today our first destination was Salem!

As we drove, the further we got out of Boston the more ‘New England’ looking the houses became. It was all just so pretty.

Within the hour we were in Salem. It was really rather busy. It was the week running up to Halloween so I guess for town that trades on its witch trial history then Halloween is their busiest time of year.

We finally found a car park with spaces and headed towards the Salem Witch Museum. The queues were massive and most tours for the day were sold out. I was a little disappointed but the girls said they didn’t fancy it anyway.

We then went across to Salem Common. I was really disappointed here. Whilst I knew it would be busy I was expecting it to be more ‘pagan’ and less ‘chav’. The common was full of fairground rides, hot dog stalls, burger vans and fairground stalls. I just didn’t expect the tat!

We had an unsuccessful hunt for a geocache on the common and so made our way towards witch trial memorial. We passed these strange and spooky houses on the way and lots of psychic and Halloween type shops. But again they were more cheap tat than pagan.

The witch trial memorial was interesting though and the girls were fascinated by the stories of how women who used herbal remedies or lived on their own were deemed as witches. The memorial told how each of them were killed. Crushed to death was the one that freaked us out the most.

Lots of the memorial sites had candles and flowers and some had cards with messages from family members. It was all quite moving and very sad that these women were persecuted for their lifestyles. This was more of the side of Salem that I wanted to see.

From here we walked down through the Salem witch village. There was nothing spooky, supernatural or pagan about any of it at all. It was full of tacky shops and hen parties. Maybe it’s different at night or when it’s not so close to Halloween. We stopped along the way for Izzy to pose for a few photos though.

Not far from here we found Brothers Taverna. This was a lovely family café/restaurant and we had a great lunch.

After lunch we did a spot of shopping. Jeff bought another t-shirt and we picked up a few souvenirs to at least prove we’d been.

Continued below...

[Erial]

Not long after we decided to hit the road as we had a 2.5 hour drive ahead of us as tonight we were staying in Greenfield ready for Mohawk Trail tomorrow and we wanted to do as much of the journey in daylight if possible.

The journey was largely uneventful with the view looking mostly like this …

And Abi looking like this…

Izzy’s sidekick, Puppy, seemed to enjoy himself though and Izzy passed the time by taking lots of selfies and blurry scenery photos.

We arrived in Greenfield about 4:30pm. We were staying at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Greenfield. We quickly realised that they don’t get many English tourists around here. The hotel manager checked us in and was completely fascinated by our accents. We also got the impression that the hotel is used as a business hotel and there were very few families at the hotel. We were a total novelty.

The hotel was lovely though. It was the cheapest hotel of the holiday and only chosen because of its location at the start of the Mohawk Trail. We had a massive room (we were given an accessible room) and there were free snacks and drinks constantly available in the reception area. I managed to try a pumpkin spiced latte for the first time. It was lovely!

There was a ‘99’ restaurant next door that we were going to go to for dinner but Izzy had clocked that there was a pool and so the girls were desperate to go for a swim. Jeff joined them but I declined. The lack of other families at the hotel meant that they had the pool to themselves.

It was 7pm by the time they were out of the pool and no one fancied getting themselves presentable enough to eat out. Instead there was a small business park opposite with a KFC, McDonalds and Taco Bell opposite and so between us we visited all of them and took it all back to our room. We’re really living the high life!

We went to bed looking forward to doing the Mohawk Trail the next day.

Tomorrow: The Mohawk Trail &
Yankee Candle

Thanks for reading.
Claire
x

[Sparksy72]

The hotel really is super handy, I had wondered if we could use the subway to get back to the airport- you make it all look so easy! The scenery on the way to Salem is gorgeous- proper 'fall' colours. It looks like you had enough to keep you entertained- we also like to make use of the hotel pools, even better with a hotel picnic after!

Also to answer your question previously- Our Road trip starts in Boston, we are doing the VA afternoon flight from Manchester direct, staying at The Revere for 2 nights.
Day 1 - Boston
Day 2 - Boston Red Sox Game!
Day 3 - Boston to Portland, stopping at Salem and Portsmouth.
Day 4 - Portland to Burlington (via Merrimack outlets!)
Day 5 - Burlington to Utica (via Charlotte and then the ferry over Lake Champlain to Essex Ny)
Day 6 - Utica NY to Niagara
Day 7 - Niagara Falls
Day 8 - Niagara Falls to Spencerport (visiting family)
Day 9 - Spencerport to Boston
Day 10 - Boston
Day 11 - Boston
Day 12 - Boston - Manchester

There is a lot of travelling but we don't mind, my husband loves driving and I love holidays! I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip 😊

[Melbatb]

Some glorious scenery! Fall is certainly the time to visit!

[Pussycat Doll]

Sounds like a great day, you did better than we did, we couldn't even find Salem last time we went! You sound very much like us, ending up eating in your room!

[Erial]

Originally Posted by Sparksy72

The hotel really is super handy, I had wondered if we could use the subway to get back to the airport- you make it all look so easy! The scenery on the way to Salem is gorgeous- proper 'fall' colours. It looks like you had enough to keep you entertained- we also like to make use of the hotel pools, even better with a hotel picnic after!

Also to answer your question previously- Our Road trip starts in Boston, we are doing the VA afternoon flight from Manchester direct, staying at The Revere for 2 nights.
Day 1 - Boston
Day 2 - Boston Red Sox Game!
Day 3 - Boston to Portland, stopping at Salem and Portsmouth.
Day 4 - Portland to Burlington (via Merrimack outlets!)
Day 5 - Burlington to Utica (via Charlotte and then the ferry over Lake Champlain to Essex Ny)
Day 6 - Utica NY to Niagara
Day 7 - Niagara Falls
Day 8 - Niagara Falls to Spencerport (visiting family)
Day 9 - Spencerport to Boston
Day 10 - Boston
Day 11 - Boston
Day 12 - Boston - Manchester

There is a lot of travelling but we don't mind, my husband loves driving and I love holidays! I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip 😊

See more...

Wow! That looks a fabulous trip! Like you say, it is a lot of driving but the scenery is so stunning that you won't even notice the time.

Yes, the subway system is so easy. It's all colour coded. Even the trams on the green line were green! You just can't go wrong. If we'd have known how easy it was we'd have probably caught the subway when we arrived too!

Thank you for sticking with me and continuing to read and comment.
Claire
x

[Erial]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Some glorious scenery! Fall is certainly the time to visit!

See more...

It was absolutely beautiful!

Originally Posted by Pussycat Doll

Sounds like a great day, you did better than we did, we couldn't even find Salem last time we went! You sound very much like us, ending up eating in your room!

See more...

Lol! It's not exactly signposted very well as you leave Boston and it's all via quite minor roads. Fortunately I'd pre-programmed the places we wanted to visit into our sat nav before we left home.

Thanks for reading.
Claire
x

[disney owl]

another good report

[emmabanana]

Great trip report, Salem is nothing like I expected it to be!

[justacey]

We visited Salem in April 2002 (blimey a log time ago!). I disliked Boston, but loved Salem. My major memory is it was chuffin freezing, but so pretty.