21st Day - Boston

After Brekky at our favourite cafe we hit the road and walked to the Bunker Hill monument built to commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill fought on the 17th June, 1775. We found this a bit intriguing as the Colonists actually lost the battle to the British though both suffered horrendous casualties. The street lights in the area are gas and shine 24hours a day and have done for maybe hundreds of years(?). It must be difficult to find your way around in these areas as they are so exclusive as to not have a title like say Sapphire Gardens Apartments but only a number on the building - 196 or something. Then I don't know where you would park anyway. We then took a shuttle to North Station and walked to North End (Little Italy) and had lunch at the Florentine Cafe which was a lovely setting with spring flowers in the window boxes. I think I am changing my opinion of the first few days and really falling for this place. Oh, before that we had morning tea at a lovely pastry/bakery and I was blown away at the beautiful array of pastries on offer. We chose a French Horn and a Boston Cream Bun and just sat and ogled all the other goodies. Then a visit to The Old North Church where Paul Revere arranged for the 1or 2 lanterns to be lit to alert the troops to whichever route the British Soldiers were taking. This was built in 1770 and is still used each Sunday for services. The congregation (families) had their own little gated stalls and in winter they would bring heated foot warmers from home. Then we walked to Paul Revere's house, built c.1680 - very dark but the rooms seemed fairly large for the time but only 2 bedrooms for the family with 16children! We found our way to the Farmers Market where we bought a large punnet of huge strawberries for $2 - for afters tonight and then to Quincey Market again where the Cheers Bar was in full swing and packed out. We visited the monstrous Christmas Shop where they had everything from an Elvis tree decoration ($14) to dogs, cats, Spider-Man and anything else you could possibly think of but nothing I needed. We still wanted to visit the old ship The Constitution (built1797)for a tour so found the ferry again and back near "home" where we went on board and saw the cannons (40) and the narrow hammocks where the sailors slept. Too bad if someone snored as there was only about 10cms between. We then bought ourselves some Clam Chowder to heat up for our dinner-yum! Tomorrow we board the "Maasdam" for 7 day voyage north to Nova Scotia and ending at Montreal . We think we have just about seen all the tourist spots here in Boston after the 5 days.