One of the nice things about Fairmont Gold is the free breakfast.

After partaking of same, we headed out to catch the hop-on-hop-off bus tour – and promptly headed back in again. It was about 14 degrees, but a shrill wind.

Once properly layered up, we got to the bus stop, which had around half a dozen people waiting. Nobody seemed 100% sure if this was indeed the right place, but around 15 minutes later the bus turned up and we were allowed on. Our strategy was to stay on the whole way round and decide what to do/where to go thereafter.

What followed was a fascinating and at times overwhelming couple of hours, brought to life by Bailey, the bus driver. So much information and history.

Picture taking was difficult due to our position on the bus, but we resolved to come back and see some of these historic places later (if we could remember where they were…..)

We did the whole circuit, then got off at the Boston Public Gardens.

Lovely.

Boston is, of course, famed for being the home city of the TV series “Cheers”. The bar was open!

It was absolutely rammed, and actually not particularly attractive, so we took a few pictures and continued on our way.

A late lunch was sought. We found a really good Italian restaurant – we were near the Little Italy area of the Boston North End – called Maggiano’s, where we were treated to a very nice meal. Jean had to help me out with mine, as hers was relatively small and mine was huge.

We were at this stage near the start of the Freedom Trail in Boston Common, a two and a half mile walk showcasing many of the historic sites of Boston and distinguished by a red line in the sidewalk that one could follow. We decided to give this a try and see a) if it worked out b) how far we might get. More details can be found at https://www.thefreedomtrail.org/trail-sites, which I commend for your attention if you have the time and patience.

There is far too much to report in any detail here. I also commend the Wikipedia entry on Paul Revere at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere. An extraordinary man.

At this point, we engaged with a walking tour history guide, with whom we spent a good 15 minutes talking US history, UK royalty and other stuff. Most enjoyable, but it reduced our time left for the remainder of the Freedom Trail as it was already beginning to get dark. We managed to get a few more pictures and stops in.

Even though we’d only completed about half of the Freedom Trail, we decided to return to the hotel and maybe finish it tomorrow (weather looking dampish, unfortunately).

Boston has an underground/overground public transport system, which we dared to use to get back to the hotel. After a lot of puzzled staring at ticketing machine screens, we eventually sussed it out and rode back to the hotel with no trouble.

It’s difficult to convey the impact this city has made so far. There is so much here and we have two full days left.

I can understand why people love this place, and we’ve only been here a day. Absolutely amazing. Personally, the impact on my senses so far has been greater than Montreal, and that’s saying something.

Jean pointed out over lunch that this was our last weekend in North America. A week today, we board the Queen Mary 2 from New York back to Southampton. Blimey!

We plan to visit the Mary Baker Eddy library to see the Mapparium, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Boston Tea Party Museum, Old Ironsides, the Bunker Hill monument, Beacon Hill, finish off the Freedom Trail and maybe more over the next couple of days. Hope you are interested enough to stick with us as this great adventure nears its end.