What I loved about Boston: 

The people, the history, the architecture, North End (Little Italy), Quincy Food Market, Beacon Hill, ease of public transport, visiting Harvard.

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My Boston highlights:

The North End, Boston’s Little Italy

This is more like San Francisco’s North Beach than New York’s Little Italy; it’s smaller than NY’s, more charming, less cluttered, less manic.

Fanueil Hall and the Freedom Trail.

Visit Quincy Market with an empty stomach and check out all the food stalls before committing to one cuisine – so much choice!

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Rambling around Beacon Hill.

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The Boston Tea Party Museum – much more than a museum. A tour and reenactment with  actors as guides.

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Seeing Harvard:

Harvard is so beautiful and there’s a myriad of options when it comes to guided tours and self guiding tours through apps. I was getting tired of doing tours and sticking to schedules so  I downloaded  a self guided tour to my phone which allowed me to  turn up when I wanted and ramble around at my own pace. It also allowed me to tune in only to what interested me. Most interesting: the library’s history and the special conditions which ensured that Harvard could build downwards when they wanted to extend the building.

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Day trips from Boston

Cape Cod is a pretty, New England, WASP, seaside town with lots of history surrounding the Kennedy dynasty. I didn’t get to Martha’s Vineyard or Salem because I was on a bus tour so my choices were limited. I wasn’t hugely impressed by Cape Cod, perhaps because my favourite coastal towns are in places like the South of France, Greek Islands and southern Italy. It may be an unfair comparison but Cape Cod just didn’t make a strong impression on me.

Next time: 

Next time I’m doing a day trip to Salem and I’m definitely visiting Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst. I missed it because it was closed on my last day in Massachusetts.