Last weekend, a week before Halloween, The Nomads were restless and needing to tickle our itch for adventure. Mama Nomad had been wanting to visit Bean Town, partially because she was/is a big NKOTB fan. Boston has a lot of history and things to see, so we hit the road to explore the Boston Freedom Trail.
The Boston Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile, about 4 kilometer, path that runs through Downtown, Boston. It passes by at least 16 officially recognized places that are meaningful to the History of The United States, as well as many other unofficial places. The whole trail has a brick lined path that runs through sidewalks so that you can visually follow it. And, there are some signs posted along the streets and buildings as well. When you reach an officially recognized, historically significant place, you will find a big circular marker on the ground that says “Boston • The Freedom Trail” on it.
The trail starts at the Boston Common and runs to the USS Constitution. The official places you will visit or walk by are as follows:
- Boston Common
- Massachusetts State House
- Park Street Church
- Granary Burying Ground
- King’s Chapel & Burying Ground
- Benjamin Franklin Statue & Boston Latin School Site
- Old Corner Bookstore
- Old South Meeting House
- Old State House
- Boston Massacre Site
- Faneuil Hall
- Paul Revere House
- Old North Church
- Copp’s Hill Burying Ground
- Bunker Hill Monument
- USS Constitution & Museum
I won’t elaborate about the historical significance of each locale. If you would like to know, The Freedom Trail’s website has a great document on it. You can also find a map of the trail on their site. It may be helpful to print off this map or, at least, print a map of your own and draw a line, with a red pen, where the trail is. Having a map in hand was very helpful to us. However, if you pay attention to the brick trail marker in the sidewalk, you can still successfully navigate the trial.
We arrived in Boston and parked at a place located on the corner of Tremont and Beacon. It is actually called One Beacon. On a weekend the parking is $10 for all day parking and it is close to the beginning of the Freedom Trail. After parking we headed over to the Visitor Information Center, located just past the fountain in Boston Common. They have pretty clean restrooms. So, if you have to go or think about having to go, take advantage of it while you are there.
From Boston Common we traversed the city. At one point we literally walked through the center of the Boston Market (farmer’s market). Seeing all of these historical places, both officially recognized and others that were not officially recognized but still interesting, was great! Absolutely great. I mean, we went to the church that Paul Revere hung that fateful lantern in the bell tower of. How cools is that?!?!
Oh, and by Faneuil Hall, we saw many performers. It is an enjoyable area. We stopped and watched this one dance group, The Breeze Team, for quite a while. Tip to you shy people, do not stand in the front row. They will drag you into the show. But, it is very entertaining. We walked around to the other side and saw some comedic performers. We even saw the Invisible Man. Well…we saw his clothes walking around. Hahaha!
We really enjoyed Bean Town. Mama Nomad said it was one of her favorite big cities (and that is besides the NKOTB connection to it). The city is actually very walkable with a ton of things to see and do. While we were there, we also stopped in to Paulie’s to eat, one of the fanciest Walgreens we had ever seen and I had to, of course, visit Cheers. The Nomads enjoyed Bean Town and will likely visit again. Safe Travels.
