I've 'accidentally' booked a trip to Boston - day 5 30th December 2017

[Goldia]

Day 5 30th December 2017 Cheesecake Factory brunch, Paul Revere House and the Cheers Bar

I was first awake this morning at around 6am. Everyone else was up by 7 and we mooched around the room for a while slowly getting ready. DH and the kids shared the frosties for first breakfast, but we’d already decided we needed to have a proper brunch today.

We waited for the 11am hotel shuttle.

Why oh why can't that boy stand still for a photo?

Lovely Christmas trees in the lobby.

We walked to the Cambridge Mall as there was only one place on my mind…Cheesecake Factory . We hadn’t managed to squeeze this place in last summer in Orlando so I was really keen to get the chance on this trip and it didn’t disappoint.

It was pretty quiet in here when we first arrived as it was about 11.30am.

First up was the bread which of course was lovely and warm and devoured pretty quickly.

Both the kids ordered the Oreo milkshake, these were very filling and what with the bread they had just eaten meant that they both had difficulty eating their meals.

DH and myself both had coffee, which were not so good really.

DD ordered another quesadilla from the kids menu, this is the girl who doesn’t like cheese . Except when its melted on a pizza or in a tortilla !

DS ordered The Everything pizza, it was huge he really struggled with it.

He managed less than a quarter of it...

We got the rest boxed up and ended up carrying it all round Boston for the rest of the day!

DH had the eggs benedict with spinach bacon and tomatoes.

I ordered the chicken and waffles benedict. Wow this was filling.

Lovely chicken, but it was way too much. Both our meals came with breakfast potatoes. I ended up eating about half of it. DH managed the rest of my chicken but that was about it. With hindsight we should have shared some of these meals…although we stayed full for most of the day and the leftover pizza ended up being eaten for dinner.

The bill was $79.39.

We had a look around the mall, but our hearts weren’t really into the shopping, plus because we had all our layers we were fed up of carrying our coats, gloves and scarfs so we didn’t really make the most of the shopping opportunity.

We walked to Bunker Hill and had a wander around the monument.

It was not quite as cold today only -8 and much less windy.

DS couldn't sit still and had fun messing around making snowballs. At least he was happy .

We couldn’t walk up the inside to the top of the monument as it was closed due to the weather!

We walked the Freedom Trail in reverse. Most of the streets had these lovely Christmas garlands with red bows. The houses had the same style of wreath as the Christmas decorations. It was all very festive and pretty.

We crossed the river making our way to the Paul Revere House. This was very cheap to get into and really interesting.

The tour starts off downstairs in the kitchen and goes through to the living room, then upstairs to the two bedrooms. No photos are allowed inside the house.

I was finding reading the information really interesting. Apparently he had one bedroom for him and his wife and the other room was for his children. In total he had 16 children, 8 with his first wife and 8 with his second. I’m sure they didn’t all share the room at the same time, but it was not a big room and even just a handful of children in the one room would have been quite a squeeze.

Each room we went in had an attendant who was dressed in period costume. They stood at one side making sure the tourists didn’t step over the rope or touch anything. Anyway, it was fairly crowded and DH and DD had wandered upstairs ahead of me and DS. When I caught up with them DH explained that the two of them had thought the attendant was a waxwork model and they were standing right next to the ‘waxwork’ in the main bedroom when he started talking to them! To say they were shocked is a bit of an understatement. I’m not sure how they could possibly have mistaken the man for a waxwork.

We walked around to the Holocaust memorial. I was reading the information and discovered it was erected with a holocaust survivor Stephen Ross in mind who was placed in 10 concentration camps and whose parents and six siblings were killed. At the age of 14 he was liberated from Dachau and brought to America as part of the orphan programme. It was incredibly moving walking through the glass chambers with the ‘gas’ pumping up from the floor. It didn’t quite seem right to stop and pose, but you can see the glass towers behind the kids in these photos.

Sorry about DS appearing to poke his finger up the poor guys nose .

The statue is of a famous Boston mayor and congressman James Michael Curley, we’d never heard of him, but it seems he was a visionary who championed the rights of the poor people of Boston.

Onwards we wandered around Boston Winter City Hall Plaza.

There were lots of market stalls and an ice skating rink. None of us quite had the courage to skate.

We slowly made our way to Boston Common. By now we were ready for a bit of a break, but none of us really wanted to eat as we were still stuffed with our brunch. I wanted to go to the Cheers bar, which we found pretty easily.

Inside was packed, there were tables available if you wanted to order food, but nothing for just drinks so we ended up walking all round and then headed back out. We started heading out of town along Beacon Street.

We found the Corner Tavern.

This was a great place with a locals feel about it. The server was a lovely lady.

DD had a virgin cocktail and followed this up with a coke.

DS must have gone through about 3 cokes which cost a grand total of just $2 as the refills were all free.

I was finding it difficult to make a decision as all the drinks sounded nice.

DH had a Jacks Abbey lager. I had a St Germain cocktail, prosecco, St Germain and sour.

DH had a second beer and for my second drink I went for the Gold Rush, bourbon, lemon juice, angostura bitters and ginger syrup.

The bill came to just $43.87.

This was great considering we’d had 4 alcoholic drinks and the kids had multiple refills. I wish we’d discovered this place earlier in the trip as we probably would have returned as it was great place to have a pitstop on our way back to the hotel.

We walked across the Harvard Bridge and it was still very cold but much better than yesterday as there was less of a wind. The river had ice floating on it in some places. When we reached the other side of the river I mentioned to the others that this MIT building was where we had seen rabbits playing around in the snow yesterday. We couldn’t quite believe that they were out and about without seeming to be affected by the cold. Well, not 5 seconds after I mentioned the rabbits and there they were again. DH tried to get some photos of them and did pretty well.

Back in the hotel room we were all feeling a bit peckish now and ended up scoffing DS leftover pizza. It was pretty good considering it had been dragged around Boston all day and was enough for 2 slices each. DH and myself shared the rest of the bottle of wine we’d started yesterday. For our pudding we ate up the Christmas biscuits and the Heroes chocolates.

Rather than go back out we went down to the hotel lounge. DS had a coke, DD had a lemonade and I had a bourbon negroni. DH had 2 glasses of wine.

We ordered a side of fries to share as the kids and DH were still a bit peckish. We played the clues to historical figures game DD had made up earlier in the trip. Despite me and the kids only having one drink each this bill was more expensive than the Corner Tavern at $44.94.

Oh well, it was convenient and meant we didn’t have to go out into the cold, and we did enjoy our drinks.

Today we managed 19,149 steps and were in our PJs by 9pm! Once again DS was the last to turn off his tablet and go to sleep he says he turned it off around 10pm as we were all snoring too loudly!

Tomorrow we are off to Fenway Park and have lunch at Wahlburgers where I meet my hero (sort of!).

[Mumtotwo]

Enjoying reading your trip report as off to Boston in the summer for four days and then onto NY.

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Mumtotwo

Enjoying reading your trip report as off to Boston in the summer for four days and then onto NY.

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I'm glad you've found it fun! We really enjoyed it , even though I moan a lot about the cold it was still a great trip. We went to NYC last summer, before going to Orlando, I did a food report, if you're interested the link is in my signature.

[Melbatb]

Another great day - you certainly packed in a lot! It stil looks cold though

Funny about the real waxwork figure

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Another great day - you certainly packed in a lot! It stil looks cold though

Funny about the real waxwork figure

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Yep, some of those waxworks are very lifelike

[jocat]

You pack so much in despite the cold. It puts our trip to Boston to shame.

Got to love a visit to the Cheesecake Factory. We’ve never finished a meal yet though!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by jocat

You pack so much in despite the cold. It puts our trip to Boston to shame.

Got to love a visit to the Cheesecake Factory. We’ve never finished a meal yet though!

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We had to keep moving or we'd have frozen solid .

I don't know what we were thinking ordering so much, eyes bigger than our bellies...the leftover pizza was enough for dinner too.

[MrsSilverStar]

Love the waxwork story! The holocaust memorial sounds very moving. Sounds like you got a lot done with still having time to enjoy a few drinks, perfect!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar

Love the waxwork story! The holocaust memorial sounds very moving. Sounds like you got a lot done with still having time to enjoy a few drinks, perfect!

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It felt like a more relaxed pace today, I think because we were retracing our steps a bit so it was more laidback. Some tasty drinks indeed !

[smithlane]

What an interesting day, I can imagine the holocaust museum was very moving
The food at The Cheesecake Factory looks so good, I am absolutely having an Oreo milkshake when we next visit!
Your cocktails all look fab too, you have great taste