Voyage of the Vikings Cruise - Boston Day 2

We got up much earlier today and were out and about before 10:00.  The first thing we wanted to do today was complete our loop on the hop-on hop-off trolley so we made our way to the nearest stop.  Today was much cooler and less humid than yesterday, which was a very pleasant surprise.

We're back on the trolley for our tour of Boston.

As we looped through the city we saw many of the famous sites around Boston, which we had heard of, but had never seen in person before.  

A Boston icon from the TV show Cheers.

An interesting reflection of the old in the new.

The Boston Commons

Two views of the Charles River.

 

The current Massachusetts State House

As we completed our loop we decided to get off and visit the Boston Tea Party Museum.  I didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be very interesting and very well done.

The Boston Tea Party Museum in the foreground.

 

After doing the hour interactive tour of the museum, we made our way back to the bus stop and continued on our next stop which was the Faneuil Marketplace, which included the North Market, South Market and Quincy Market. The market is a group of shops and eating places all grouped together in a large area near the waterfront.  The markets are both indoors and outdoors and the indoor portion was packed with people.  After looking around a bit, we found a place to eat and we both had some very good fish and chips for lunch.   

Very crowded inside the markets.

But much less so outside.

There was music and entertainment scattered around the area.

 The next thing we wanted to do was visit the Old North Church so it was back to the trolley. We got off the trolley and asked the driver where the Old North Church was and he said it was just past Paul Revere’s house.  We made our way to Paul Revere’s house and looked around and then looked for the Old North Church.  We couldn’t find it and finally consulted a map and found that the driver had sent us in totally the wrong direction.  At this point we were quite a ways away from it so we decided to just skip it.  It was disappointing, but we were getting tired so we decided to make our back to the hotel.  From where we were it was closer to walk than catch the trolley so we walked.

Paul Revere's house

There are two old cemeteries near our hotel that we visited as we walked back.  The first was King’s Chapel Burial Ground and the second was the more famous Granary Burying Ground where the victims of the Boston Massacre, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere were buried; very interesting.  After that we wanted to get off our feet and it was close to 5:00 so we made our way back to our hotel.

The King's Chapel Burial Ground

Granary Burying Ground

The grave of Sam Adams

Paul Revere's grave.  His parents were also buried here.

John Hancock was buried here.

The grave of the five men killed in the Boston Massacre.

 We hung around the hotel for a while and then went out looking for something to eat.  We weren’t very hungry so we walked around a bit and Val found a place selling falafels which sounded good to her, but I decided not to get anything.  We returned to the hotel and called it a night.  Tomorrow is embarkation day for our Voyage of the Vikings Cruise.