La Casa Camerino: 2018 - October 9th-12th

We landed at Boston Logan Airport around 6:15PM. After retrieving our luggage, we walked one terminal over to meet with Sandra and Ray whose flight from London had arrived shortly before ours. We had set a designated meeting location which worked out well for the four of us. It was so good to see them and confirm that they had a good flight over! Let the adventure begin! We took the airport shuttle bus to the Water Taxi stand at the airport. Our accommodations booked for three nights were at The Green Turtle Floating Bed & Breakfast in the Boston Charlestown Marina located at the Old Navy Yard. We boarded our water taxi for a nighttime ride across the bay to Pier 8 to be greeted by our innkeepers John and Karen. The night view of lit-up Boston was spectacular from our taxi!

The Green Turtle is a floating bed & breakfast as luxurious as it is unique. Set in the historic Charlestown Navy Yard, the Green Turtle offers an expansive view of the Boston Harbor skyline along with the comfort and amenities of a modern bed and breakfast. We chose the floating barge with two separate suites, Sea Turtle and Loggerhead. We had a common entrance leading to our private doored suites. Karen made great breakfasts from their ship docked behind our B&B and John delivered them at our specified time each morning. They also have two regular boats that act as B&B's also. We really enjoyed our untraditional boat and the gentle rocking of the harbor water.

After getting settled in and with the long day for Ray and Sandra being rather draining getting to the airport for an international fight, the flight duration and the time change, it was time for them to get some shut-eye. We walked over two piers to the Pier 6 Restaurant for some dinner. This was the first Lobster Roll of the trip! It was so delicious that the four of us retuned the next night so Ray could get his first and Larry his second!

In the morning after Karen's wonderfully prepared breakfast was brought over by John and we had eaten on our deck chairs outside on our dock "front porch", it was time to start seeing Boston! We had designated this day to walk the two and a half mile Freedom Trail. By the end of the day we had walked six and a half miles with everything that we did. The Freedom Trail is a unique collection of museums, churches, meeting houses, burying grounds, parks, a ship, and historic markers that tell the story of the American Revolution and beyond. The Freedom Trail's path through downtown Boston passes by 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. Marked largely with brick, it winds between Boston Common to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. Stops along the trail include simple explanatory ground markers, graveyards, notable churches and buildings, and a historic naval frigate. It is easy to follow with or without a map as the trail is designated with a red line, usually made from red bricks. In areas that are concrete, the line sometimes is red paint. Each of the stops along the path are designated with a Freedom Trail medallion in the walk.

From Pier 8 we could walk through the Old Navy Yard and beautiful old neighborhood that it surrounds to begin the Freedom Trail. As The USS Constitution was closest from our end, so we decided to walk the trail sort of backwards and start there. The walk was short and we were able to take in the beautiful neighborhood buildings and flowers along our route.

We went into the USS Constitution Museum to take in so much history.

We decided as this was so close to our B&B that we would continue on The Freedom Trail and return on our way back in the late afternoon to tour. Our day was so full that we decided to start the next day by touring the ship first thing in the morning. We really were able to enjoy the USS Constitution. The USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy named by President George Washington after the United States Constitution. She is the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat. She was launched in 1797, one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed.

We all enjoyed and learned by touring the USS Constitution …. "Old Irionsides"

Our next stop on The Freedom Trail was Bunker Hill. On the walk we went through Winthrop Square Park. In this small Boston park we saw The Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

The Bunker Hill Monument is an Obelisk on a small hill in Monument Square. Also located here is the William Prescott statue commemorating William Prescott, the American colonel in the Revolutionary War who commanded the patriot forces in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Prescott is known for his order to his soldiers, "Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes", such that the rebel troops may shoot at the enemy at shorter ranges, and therefore more accurately and lethally, and so conserve their limited stocks of ammunition.

Another walk through on the Trail was City Square Park. Here we took in the Codfish statue. Why codfish? For several reasons, the Atlantic Codfish was important to the history, the economy and the well-being of New England. Codfish swarmed by the millions in the ocean, within easy reach. They fed the Native Americans and the Puritan colonists, as well as the Jewish, Irish, French-Canadian, and Italian immigrants who came to the city in the following centuries. Cod was often the Fish on Friday for Catholic Boston. The fishing industry, along with the export of salt cod to feed slaves in the West Indies, built the fortunes of Beacon Hill’s “codfish aristocracy.

And another City Square Park find was the unusual Fountain and weather vane in the middle of the park.

Leaving the park, we walked across the Charlestown Bridge where the next stop on The Freedom Trail was Copp's Hill Burial Ground. The cemetery was founded on February 20, 1659, when the town bought land on Copp's Hill from John Baker and Daniel Turell to start the "North Burying Ground". Now named "Copp's Hill Burying Ground", it is the second oldest cemetery in Boston (second only to the King's Chapel Burying Ground founded in 1630). It contains more than 1200 marked graves, including the remains of various notable Bostonians from the colonial era into the 1850’s.

Winding down the beautiful old streets of Historic North Boston brought us to The Old North Church. Founded in 1723, the Old North Church is the oldest standing church in the City of Boston, made famous by Paul Revere’s midnight ride and, “One if by land, two if by sea.” The enduring fame of the Old North began on the evening of April 18, 1775, when the church sexton, Robert Newman, and Vestryman Capt. John Pulling, Jr. climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea across the Charles River and not by land. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution. Built in 1723, Christ Church in the City of Boston, known to all as the Old North Church, is Boston’s oldest surviving church building and most visited historical site. In 1775, on the eve of Revolution, the majority of the congregation were loyal to the British King and many held official positions in the royal government, including the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, making Robert Newman’s loyalty to the Patriot cause even more extraordinary. The King gave the Old North its silver that was used at services and a bible.

Paul Revere's House is next on the Freedom Trail. Built in 1680, the unimposing wooden house at 19 North Square is the oldest house in downtown Boston. The 3-story building was the home of silversmith and Boston Patriot Paul Revere from 1770-1800, previously housing the parsonage of the Second Church of Boston. Revere sold the house in 1800 and it became a tenement with the ground floor used for shops and various businesses over the years.

Proceeding along, we come to Faneuil Hall. For 275 years, Faneuil Hall remains a site of meetings, protests, and debate right up to this very day. Because Revolutionary-era meetings and protests took place so frequently at the hall, successive generations continued to gather at the Hall in their own struggles over the meaning and legacy of American liberty. Abolitionists, women's suffragists, and labor unionists name just the largest of groups who have held protests, meetings, and debates at Faneuil Hall. Peter Faneuil was the son of French Huguenot parents who emigrated to the colony of New York to escape persecution in Catholic France. When his parents died, Peter came to live with his uncle Andrew Faneuil in Boston. Andrew was a wealthy merchant in town, and evidently Peter became the favored nephew. When Andrew died in 1738, Peter inherited the majority of Andrew's estate and business. Virtually overnight Peter Faneuil became one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, merchants in Boston at that time. Peter Faneuil traded in many commodities which only increased his wealth and prosperity. Indeed, part of his trade included African slaves in addition to sugar, molasses, wines, fish, and timber. Peter, however, did not have a family nor a legacy of his own. Separately, he also found the Boston's lack of a central public marketplace an especially problematic situation for a growing town. In 1740 Peter Faneuil approached the town's government—the town meeting—with a proposal that a permanent central marketplace should be established in the heart of Boston. Faneuil himself would personally fund the construction of the building.

The Samuel Adams statue at Faneuil Hall in Boston, portraying his appearance while demanding that the occupying British troops be removed from the town.

Between Faneuil Hall and The Old State House is the site of The Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre was a deadly riot that occurred on March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston. It began as a street brawl between American colonists and a lone British soldier, but quickly escalated to a chaotic, bloody slaughter. The conflict energized anti-Britain sentiment and paved the way for the American Revolution.

Besides the massacre outside of the Old State House, on July 18, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time in Boston from the East Balcony to a large crowd outside. Afterward, carved figures of a royal lion and unicorn, symbols of English rule, were ripped from the roof and burned in a huge bonfire. By 1776, building had officially become the Massachusetts State House . . . until 1798 when the government moved to the current State House.

Possibly a courthouse or library we passed a couple of minutes after The Old South Meeting House. I took this picture because it looked so traditionally "New England". It would have helped to take a picture of what the building is!!! The Old Corner Bookstore is one that can be missed. This is the red brick building that you see today, and one of Boston's oldest brick structures. They say looking up at the sloping gambrel roof and noting the decorative bands of bricks marking each floor on the State Street side that you're seeing essentially the same building that Benjamin Franklin and others saw as they walked down the street in 1718 - aside from the "London-style" bay windows added in 1828 by an aspiring publisher who bought the building. However, the Old Corner Bookstore's place on Boston's Freedom Trail is due to literature, not architecture. Walden, The Scarlet Letter, and The Star Spangled Banner are just a few of the well-known classics published here. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alfred Tennyson, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and many others gathered here to discuss their works and exchange literary gossip at what they called The Saturday Club.

Next on the trail was The Boston Latin School. Boston Latin School is the oldest school in America. It was founded April 23, 1635 by the Town of Boston, antedating Harvard College by more than a year. The curriculum of the school is centered in the humanities. Its founders sharing with the ancient Greeks the belief that the only good things are the goods of the soul. From its beginning, Boston Latin School has taught its scholars dissent with responsibility and has persistently encouraged such dissent. A scholarly Benjamin Franklin Statue stands in front of Boston Latin School.

We passed Old City Hall on our Freedom Trail walk and were delighted to see this beautiful building and the statue of Benjamin Franklin out front!

Kings Chapel - Originally built of wood in 1686 as the first Anglican Church in colonial New England during the reign of King James II. In 1754 this stone chapel was erected. The belfry holds an original 1816 Paul Revere bell that still rings today. The King’s Chapel burying ground was the only place for nearly 30 years in Boston. Both John Winthrop, the first governor, and Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off of the Mayflower, are buried here.

Just two blocks further is the Granary Burying Ground established in 1660. Town officials set aside for burials part of what was then the Boston Common to help alleviate overcrowding in the near-by King’s Chapel Burying Ground. Along with Massachusetts governors, mayors and clergymen, visitors will find the graves of three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine; Peter Faneuil, benefactor of the famed downtown Boston landmark; patriot and craftsman Paul Revere; James Otis, Revolutionary orator and lawyer; and five victims of the Boston Massacre. Near the center of the ground, a 25-foot-tall obelisk commemorates the tomb of Benjamin Franklin’s parents.

Park Street Church, built well after the American Revolution, occupies land once part of Boston Common. The Puritans built a public grain storage building, a long wooden structure called the Old Granary, in 1729 in the space now occupied by the church. In 1809, Park Street Church was erected for a Trinitarian Evangelical congregation that broke off from Boston's Old South Church due to concerns about the growing influence of Unitarianism. Upon completion, the church drew acclaim as one of the city's most beautiful buildings, with soaring spires popularized in London. Unfortunately, the steeple proved unstable and had to be shortened in the late 1800s, but otherwise, the church you see today is the original.

The Massachusetts State House is located on Beacon Street across from Boston Common. Completed in 1798 not long after the American Revolution, it embodies the ideals of freedom and self-governance that fueled the war. Two famous Revolutionary War heroes, Paul Revere and Massachusetts State Governor Samuel Adams, laid its cornerstone on July 4, 1795 when construction began. The State House is the oldest building on Beacon Hill, and despite being actively used by the Massachusetts state government, it contains many museum-quality treasures inside and out. The gold dome was once made of wood and later overlaid with copper by Paul Revere. It was covered with 23-karat gold leaf for the first time in 1874.

Boston Common is The United States of America's oldest public park. Boston Common was purchased by its citizens in 1634 for 30 Pounds and officially set aside as public or "common" land by a vote in 1640. The park's original purpose was for military training grounds and a place for grazing cattle. In modern times, Boston Common is used for recreation. It's a place to escape from the bustle of the city. The Parkman Bandstand was built in 1912.

Brewer Fountain in Boston Common

Bronze Frogs at the Frog Pond in Boston Commons

Soldier and Sailor Monument - Boston Common

And that concluded The Freedom Trail!!!

Thursday morning after the USS Constitution tour, we went over to The Boston Tea Party Experience. Enter the meeting house and step back in time to rebellious 1773 Boston! Samuel Adams was our 18th Century Host! We receive our own souvenir symbolic “Mohawk” disguise played a part in the Destruction of the Tea. We heard and learned the dramatic events that led to the Boston Tea Party as we participated in a colonial town meeting! Now that we struck "The boldest stroke yet struck in America", we found ourselves on Griffin’s Wharf on the morning after the Boston Tea Party. The Experience surrounded the immediate debate firsthand and the potential ramifications for our bold actions of throwing the tea overboard! We were discharged with … are you a Patriot or Loyalist?

We joined a Son of Liberty as we took part in the "Destruction of the Tea!" We threw tea into the very same body of water where the Boston Tea Party took place over 240 years ago. As we explored the ship, we experiences life at sea aboard an 18th century merchant vessel. We took the helm, and went below to explore the crew’s quarters, cargo hold, and the Captain's cabin. We started by throwing the tea into the harbor!

Taking the helm and exploring the ship

Then to the Warf, gift shop and tea room

Catching up on some other sites during a rain, we had passed the site of Cheers. The bar is nothing like the one in the TV show, so the owner opened a Cheers as a replica by Faneuil Hall where there are a ton of eateries and stores. it was great!

Ray and Sandra had seen the Boston Holocaust Memorial yesterday as we were walking. We had our umbrellas and off we went. The memorial is very moving with quotes and names etched in five glass towers. Below is steam rising, symbolizing the smoke from the furnaces.

Across the street from this very modern memorial sits The Oldest Tavern in America. The Bell In Hand Tavern has been around since 1795.

And the opposite corner has The Union Oyster House, located on the Freedom Trail, near Faneuil Hall. It enjoys the unique distinction of being America's oldest restaurant. This Boston fixture, housed in a building dating back to Pre-Revolutionary days, started serving food in 1826 and has continued ever since with the stalls and oyster bar, where Daniel Webster was a constant customer, in their original positions.

Next in line for us was The Parish Café - great lunch in the heart of Boston. Larry & Ray just couldn't resist another Lobster Roll! The Parish Café was right across from Boston Public Garden, the rest of Boston Common. We walked around taking in this "Central Park" ambiance of Boston. The William Ellery Channing Statue, Boylston Street entrance to Boston Public Garden. He was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and one of Unitarianism's leading theologians.

The Edward Everett Hale statue is in the park. He was an American clergyman and author best remembered for his short story “The Man Without a Country.”