Our trip to Europe and the States 2013: Boston

We arrived in Boston at 8-00pm last night, the 22nd Sept, after a full days travel from Madrid, via Toronto. Watched the 2nd race of the A C, I won't talk about it !!

Cemetery where Paul Revere is buried

Just getting ready to head out and have a look around the city. We have three days to ourselves here before the bus trip starts on Thursday.

Massachusetts State House

Well we are back at the hotel now, after walking the "freedom trail" for most of the day and getting to see a lot of the historical sites of the city. Boston was the largest city in the States until the mid 18th century, and the heart of the early pilgrim settlements and the revolutionary wars against the British. The "freedom trail" takes you to, or past, many of the places where significant events took place.

Inside State House

Making sure we are still on track

First Church

Variety of Architecture

Very cool monument to the Jews

Bunker Hill monument

Cool skyline

Squirrel in park

Main Entrance to Harvard University

First Hall of Residence built in 17th C

It's Tuesday today, and our second day in Boston. We decided to do a couple of things today. Firstly we took the train out to Harvard, joined a one hour, student lead, tour and following that had a walk around the town of Cambridge, where Harvard is located. Harvard is the oldest University in the USA, established in 1636

Admin block with statue of John Harvard

Harvard Church Tower

We then returned to Boston and spent rest of the day walking around the city. Really beautiful city, water, parks, great buildings and lots of history. Here are a few photo's from the day.

Downtown Boston

More Boston High rise

and again :-)

Boston City Library

Inside Quad of Library

and waterways

Great Parks

Couldn't resist this :-)

JFK Memorial Library

Entrance

Third and final day in Boston today and having had a good look around over the last couple of days decided to take a train to south Boston and visit the J F K memorial library, and it was well worth the trip. Never been to a "Presidential library" before so that was a new experience just by itself.

The period of the 60's

Inauguration Address

It was as I expected, his life story and the various elections that he fought, some lost and others won. They obviously portrayed his Presidential years and all the key events within that period.

They didn't cover the assassination in any detail at all, just put the date in bold print on the wall and then you moved down a corridor to a whole section on the impact and legacy that his Presidency has left. It was very well done. This needed to be, and was, all about his life, not the controversy, shock and conspiracies around his death, we have had enough of all that. The whole thing was very informative, impacting, and well worth the visit.

Making the News

Great orator

We then spent another couple of hours walking around the main shopping area of the city. We are now back at the hotel and will register with the bus tour shortly.

Go team NZ......