This is post two of three on our trip to Boston. Read more about day one here. :)
We decided to take our time on Sunday morning, since we got up really earlier the day before. On recommendation from our host, we walked to the Grasshopper Cafe for brunch, just a block from where we were staying. It was a quaint little diner, and so delicious! There were a lot of families celebrating Father’s Day.
After breakfast we walked to the Museum of Science and booked a Duck Tour. While we waited for our tour to begin we walked around the museum, which was surprisingly very interesting! I hear science and think Boooooring but I actually wished we had more time to walk through the exhibits. But by 11 am we loaded up the bus/boat with a lot of other families and hit the road and water.
I’ll be the first to admit — guided tours are super cheesy. I am not one for organized fun. But when you are in a city for just three days, this is such an easy and quick way and one of the weekend activities in Boston to see everything. Our tour guide was hilarious and I loved learning fun facts about such a historic city.
After the tour, we walked back to Charlestown. Unbeknownst to us, Sunday was Bunker Hill Day, a day when the town of Charlestown celebrates the battle of Bunker Hill. Since we were staying Charlestown, J and I picked up salads at Whole Foods and sat on the curb on Main Street to watch the parade.
Restaurants and shops closed for the afternoon and brought out chairs for people to watch. Everyone in the town had barbecues and decorated their homes with flags to celebrate. It was so fun! I’ve never seen a parade last so long!
Once the parade was coming to a close, we decided to trek back into Boston for the remainder of the day. The Freedom Trail is a marked path that runs throughout Boston alongside historical sites, and ends in Charlestown at Bunker Hill. So we decided to walk the trail in reverse, starting from where we were staying until the start at Boston Commons, the large park where it begins.
We continued to follow the trail and stopped to walk through Quincy Market and watch a street performance in front of Faneuil Hall. It should also be mentioned that the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to bottle it up!
Our goal was to walk the Freedom Trail, but our destination was Cheers, the bar that inspired the TV show and across the street from the park. When J and I first got married, we would watch Cheers on Netflix almost every night before bed (I’m pretty sure I never saw a full episode because they always put me to sleep… sometimes even before the theme song ended!). So since Sam and Diana and the gang are like old friends, we knew we wanted to stop by and have a drink at the bar.
We ordered a Sam Adams, naturally. :)
After our drinks we walked through the Boston Commons garden and back up to the North End for dinner. One of my favorite parts of this trip was the option to walk everywhere. We only took the subway twice (to/from the Red Sox game on Saturday), and walked everywhere else. This made us pretty tired by the end of the day, but it also helped us feel less guilty about the decadent meals we ate. Especially since we both are trying to lose a few pounds this summer. ;)
We couldn’t decide on what to do for dinner. Boston is known for good Italian, Irish and seafoods. Since we had eaten at a pub the night before, so we wanted either seafood or Italian, and decided to find somewhere that had both. That didn’t help narrow down our results, though, because there are sooo many delicious restaurants that had both! I also didn’t want a pretentious restaurant (you know, the ones that seem to be trying a little too hard), but somewhere popular enough for good atmosphere. After walking the cozy streets of North End, we ended up at Dolce Vita.
(Ha, we both look a little tired!) YUM. What an amazing dinner! It had the originality I was looking for (the owner was out and about welcoming guests), the atmosphere was great, and the food was delish. After dinner we walked to Mike’s Pastry and got a cannoli to go. We were way too full to enjoy it right after dinner.
After dinner, we were full, exhausted and decided to walk back to Charlestown to spend the rest of the evening at the apartment. The walk from North End to Charlestown is so pretty.
We got back to the apartment around 9:00 and watched The Town, which our hosts had in the apartment available to watch. The Town was filmed and based in Charlestown, so it was really neat to watch it and see the places we had been to earlier that day. And of course I fell asleep during the movie because we had walked everywhere that day. :)
Up next: Bike rides, Harvard, Cheerwine, and gelato.
