Boston

Tomorrow we leave Boston for Cape Cod; as we are picking up our car it should be a bit more relaxed, although we have really got to grips with the Boston metro system and made very good use of our multi day ticket.

We had a part day tour of Lexington and Concorde visiting significant sites in the Revolution, and seeing many very attractive clap board houses.

This was the day we visited Quincy Market and then went on a harbour cruise.

Quincy market where we ate clam chowder.

The weather here has been grey and yesterday, quite wet, but with our wet weather gear, we don't let that dampen our enthusiasm! 

We found a lovely little museum, called the Isabella Stewart Gardner gallery, with a stunning private collection of artwork, inclusting Whistler and John Singer Seargent, the odd Degas, Manet and a lot of medieval paintings and tapestries. It had quite a beautiful Spanish patio too. 

We hopped on the trolley tour for a while to get out of the rain then caught the metro to Harvard where we saw more of the exhibition of illustrated manuscripts we had seen in the morning at the gallery. We also got a glimpse inside one of the Harvard libraries and spent a while walking around the campus.

What a privilege it must be to study somewhere like that!

Today we spent the whole day walking the Freedom trail seeing significant sites from the fight for independence, and freedom of various groups. This included churches, burial grounds, meeting houses, monuments and the SS Constitution, the oldest serving naval ship.

The Massachusetts State house.

The Old North church

SS Constitution 

We also walked through some very colourful areas of the city, including the Irish and Italian areas.

Guess which one this is!