Boston

After an 11-hour, extremely comfortable train ride - the DB can really learn something from its American colleague AMTRAK - through the golden autumn, we arrived in Boston in the evening. From the train station we took the metro towards “Wonderland”, which we found quite promising. Our accommodation was once again a dream. After a delicious soup from the microwave, we collapsed into the cozy bed in the evening and got a good night's sleep.

The next day we took the metro back to the city center and walked along the “Freedom Trail”. This leads for about 4km along red brick sidewalks through Boston and past all historically important sights. We bought a small map with explanations at the visitor center and Philip acted as a travel guide. So we worked step by step through the history of Boston, which played an important role in the American Revolution. A special “sight” was the “Granary Burying Ground” cemetery. There was a man standing in front of the entrance gate who handed out free information material about all the important people who are buried here and sometimes also told funny anecdotes. Among others, the parents of Benjamin Franklin, who was a co-author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and was himself born in Boston, and Samuel Adams, who was also a signatory of the Declaration and after whom a brewery and type of beer are named, lie here. At the end of the path we ended up in a nice neighborhood where the Halloween decorations had not yet been taken down and were much more ostentatious than in Buffalo. Since Philip had a problem with his cell phone camera, we took a trip to what was probably the coolest Apple store in the world, where the camera damage couldn't be repaired, but we had a really good chat with the nice employees. For dinner we went to the North End, where Boston's Italian district is located. Since there were queues everywhere in front of the (apparently) good restaurants, we decided on a quieter place that ended up with mediocre pizza but good wine.

The next day we continued exploring the city, walking along the harbor where the famous “Boston Tea Party” took place in 1773. What at first glance sounds like a nice tea party was actually a revolutionary act by Bostonians against the British crown with its newly levied taxes and an expression of the heated mood that ultimately led to the War of Independence. The rioters did the most outrageous thing the British could probably imagine at the time: they threw crates of tea from the British delivery boat into the harbor basin.

Afterwards we strolled through various beautiful parks, through the shopping mile, past pretty brick houses and finally ended up in the said “Samuel Adams” brewery, where we drank a beer for his well-being.

Even though we were only there for such a short time, we really enjoyed Boston and it won't be our last time here either. The famous Harvard University is also nearby, which would certainly have been worth a visit.

This is how our wonderful and long time in the USA ends, such a diverse country that is one of our favorites of the trip.

After 10 months we are now heading back to Europe - admittedly one of the most distant corners - to the Azores.