Freedom Trail – Boston, USA

When I was a boy my dad took our entire family to New England and I vaguely remembered the time we spent in Boston. However, what I do remember I really loved and I was anxious to visit again with Lindsay. In 2009,thanks to a business trip, we got the chance. In school (Urban Design) we studied Boston numerous times for its narrow streets, old architecture and beautiful Urban Design so I was extremely excited to go back. On our first morning we woke up and were anxious to start exploring. We figured the best way to do this would be to take the famous “Freedom Trail” through the city. The Freedom Trail is a walking route through the city that passes most, if not all, of the famous historical sites around Boston. The city has done a magnificent job marking this path with red bricks to guide you along. It was a beautiful sunny day when we started our tour in Boston Commons (big park in the center of the city) and we were so excited to get started. The first stop was the beautiful State Capital building with its large gold dome. Right next to this is a beautiful statue/memorial to the civil war heroes of Robert Gould Shaw the the Massachusetts 54th infantry (first black infantry made famous by the movie Glory). I have always loved this movie and had always wanted to see this memorial so it was especially meaningful. Next we worked our way down into the financial/business district of Boston passing numerous historical makers, churches, etc. Our favorite spot however was the area around the "Old South Meeting House." This beautiful old church was surrounded by a leafy urban square, statues remembering the Irish immigrants to Boston, shops, etc. It truly was one of the most beautiful urban squares in all of America. Attached to each side of the church were cute little farmers market stands selling produce...it was overall such a cute scene. We then made our way to the beautiful, and historic, "Old State House" which is a very old historical building set amongst the towering skyscrapers of downtown Boston. We then kept walking until we were exploring the shops around Quincy Market before heading into one of our most favorite neighborhoods…Boston's North End. This is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city and is also known as “little Italy.” Just wandering through the narrow streets of this neighborhood was beautiful but we especially feel in love with the area around Paul Revere's home. The home itself has been beautifully restored and is fascinating but the little urban square immediately adjacent to it was the real highlight. The square itself was extremely old and was entirely made of large cobblestones. There were a few benches surrounding a small patch of colorful flowers and trees. To top it all off the square was surrounded on all sides by beautiful old buildings full of cafes, shops, etc. We loved this area so much that we just sat for about 30 minutes just taking it all in (and burning up our memory card). We then continued along the Freedom Trail to the Old North Church which is the famous spot where they hung the lanterns to signal the British coming (1 if by land, 2 if by sea). The church itself is gorgeous and the city has done a great job with a small surrounding park. Before leaving the old North End neighborhood we explored an old cemetery which was home to numerous American heroes. As we continued along the Freedom Path we crossed the bridge into Charlestown which is home to the famous Bunker Hill. As the path winds its way up to the hill you pass numerous cute little neighborhoods that are just simply beautiful. Bunker Hill itself is now a cool stone monument, with numerous sitting areas to sit, which offers beautiful views over to Boston. We ended our Freedom Trail walk here just sitting on a bench laughing, talking and taking in the amazing city all around us. As we walked back into Boston from Charlestown we walked again across the old steel bridge that connects the two. On this bridge we had 2 simple, but noteworthy, experiences. First, one of the few memories I had of Boston from when I was a kid was walking across an old bridge and watching the seagulls fly all around. It was such a short memory that I thought for sure we would never find that bridge. However, as we were walking across the old steel bridge that connects Charlestown and Boston I had a sudden flashback and realized this was the exact same bridge from my childhood memory. The second experience was a funny phone call we had with the kennel that was watching Sundance (our dog). As we were walking across the bridge we decided to call them just to check up on her. The lady who answered was in a hurry and just quickly said “Ahhh ya…Sundance is fine.” For some reason this cracked us up because she sounded like she had no idea which dog we were asking about. We started laughing so hard as we imagined her saying “Ahhh ya…Sunshine is fine, Ahhh ya…MoonDance is fine, Ahhhh ya…Sunriver is fine.” We literally were laughing so hard about this one dumb thing the whole time we walked across the bridge. To this day we still laugh about this whenever we think about our trip to Boston. Walking Boston’s Freedom Trail on that sunny summer day in 2009 is something we will never forget.