Of course, the primary reason I chose Boston for my vacation destination is that I could get to see a few Red Sox games at Fenway Park. Dating back to 1912, it’s the oldest MLB stadium still in active use. It’s been tweaked and upgraded and expanded over the decades, but let’s face it – the place is showing its age.
Given the oddly shaped plot of land it’s on, and the need to fit in that tiny space, there’s not much you can really do with it.
One of the things I’ve decided to do whenever I visit another city is take a walking food tour. The tour groups are small and intimate; you won’t feel lost or overwhelmed. And you’ll also get a better “feel” of the place; the way things are for the ordinary residents. Maybe a little local history, too, of the sort that doesn’t appear in the usual travel guides.
Most of the tours that came up in the searches were for the northern end of Boston, which, from the descriptions, I gather is the city’s Italian neighborhood. Those didn’t seem that appealing to me. As great as Italian food can be, it’s not that hard to get the good stuff. Even cities that don’t claim a “Little Italy” can have a couple of really good Italian restaurants.
A company called “Bites of Boston” offered a tour on the South End that fight nicely into my planned schedule, as well as looking really interesting.
The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is a rather small museum. Not just because it covers only one small incident, but because there’s so little physical “stuff” left over from the Tea Party. Heck, they aren’t even sure where it actually happened (not that it would matter much, given the amount of land that has been added to the Boston Neck since the 1770s). So putting it on “Griffin’s Wharf”, right off the Congress Street Bridge in the middle of the Fort Point Channel is as good a location as any.
Especially since it lets you dock a pair of period-appropriate replica merchant ships alongside.
I’ve actually visited Boston at least twice before. Once was in my college days, when I went there for a school-related function. There was no time to do any sightseeing. And I’d visited there in my childhood – either as a school trip or a family vacation. I remember being in Fenway Park, being on the observation deck of the Prudential Center, puttering about on the Freedom Trail, and visiting the USS Constitution.
But that’s it. Despite living within easy driving distance, I’d never thought of going there as an adult.
Until having to get a new car upended my vacation plans. Continue reading
A couple of leftovers to wrap this up.
I’d forgotten to include this in my comments on Wrigley Field, so here it is. The fans have a thing called “Moundball”, where they make a friendly wager on whether or not the ball will come to a stop on the pitching mound when the home plate umpire tosses it there at the end of a half-inning. It all seems to be in fun; I didn’t catch any actual betting. A good thing, no doubt; I’d hate to see the sports gambling sites start to take wagers on it.
One could quite easily call the stretch of South Michigan Avenue from East Adams Street to the Chicago River “Museum Row”, since there are a couple of cool museums and attractions there, all north of the Art Institute.
The first stop is the Cultural Center, between Washington and Randolph Streets. The building used to be the city’s public library, but got converted into an all-purpose arts and culture facility in the 1990s. It hosts a wide assortment of lectures, film screenings, workshops, and performances – all free to the general public. There wasn’t much happening when I visited, and it seemed like a lot of the rooms were under renovation, since many places were closed off. However, the “holy crap, that’s awesome” highlights were still open. Continue reading
The Art Institute of Chicago is much easier to get to – it’s right there on Michigan Avenue. When I went, there was actually a small crowd waiting to get in. Seems they don’t open to the general public until 11 am (one hour after they let Members in), so there’s time to hang around if, er, when you get there early. Fortunately, it’s just south of Millennium Park and just north of Grant Park, so it’s a nice place to stroll around while the clock ticks.
Every big city is going to have something in the way of a “natural history” museum. Chicago is no exception; the Field Museum is located smack in the middle of a park on the lake shore, on the wrong side of the Lake Shore Drive. Which makes it a bit inconvenient to get to, if you can’t figure out the bus routes and forget that you have a transit pass….and approach it from the side where the entrance happens to be closed that day….
But if you can pass – or at least bulldoze your way through – that intelligence test, the museum is well worth it. Continue reading
Given how many tour boats are on the Chicago River at any one time, it must be some sort of legal requirement that all visitors take a tour when they are in the city. There are several choices for type, length, and time of tour, but the most common ones are those that take you around the waterways to see the collection of interesting buildings in the downtown area. A primer, as it were – with examples – of 20th century American architecture.
Remembering the walking food tour I took on my visit to Denver, I looked for similar tours in Chicago. A company called “Bobby’s Bike Tours” offered a couple. They looked good, so I booked a tour that combined a little bit of history with some of the city’s “iconic” foods.
Well, I did want to try deep dish pizza in the place that invented it, so….
Pure Blather 