Why is Boston the setting for so many great kids’ books about birds? Well, I mean, at least two: Trumpet of the Swan and Make Way for Ducklings, both of which Abe has read over the past year or so. So before we could actually get to the Freedom Trail proper, we stopped to explore the Public Garden and pay homage to both of these fine works of literature.
This wasn’t hard to do, because the Public Garden is right across the street from Boston Common, where the Freedom Trail begins. We got off at Back Bay and walked from there since we were taking the commuter rail in and it saved us switching to the subway, but there are several other T stops that will get you as close or closer, depending on where you’re coming from. Our walk was just a few minutes and gave us a nice view of the John Hancock Tower , though:
We hadn’t really planned on riding the Swan Boats, but then they were right there, and the youngest three kids had never been on them before (I’m actually not 100% sure Ari had, either–I have a very vague memory of taking him on them when he was a baby and we lived in Boston, but I might be imagining it). And, as I mentioned, the Swan Boats were a really important part of Louis’s story in The Trumpet of the Swan. They’ve been around since the 1870’s, so they’re an iconic Boston thing to do.
Plus they sell really cute t-shirts there, and I wanted to get one for Abe, and it seemed silly for him to have the t-shirt without having ridden. Best picture I could find of said t-shirt:
Also the Swan Boat are pretty inexpensive, at $4.50 for adults and $3 for kids through 15. So we went for a ride. The ride is just that; it’s a pleasant 15 minute or so spin around a small lagoon; there’s no narration or anything, and you don’t see anything you can’t see from the shore. It’s exciting for very young kids; otherwise you’re doing it because, well, it’s the only place you can do it. We bought a Christmas ornament, too. We were mostly in it for the souvenirs.
After the Swan Boats, we set out to find the ducklings. For some reason, they were wearing ladybug wings:
And then on to the Freedom Trail! The Freedom Trail is a walking route that takes you through and past a number of sites in Boston that were important during the Revolutionary War. We’ve walked the Freedom Trail before, more than once, but not since the kids were a lot younger (or not born yet, in Abe’s case). I felt a bit sheepish about spending one of our few Boston days doing the Freedom Trail AGAIN, but it’s a great way to see a lot of the city but in a purposeful way…wandering with a purpose is one of our favorite ways to see cities.
If you walk the whole thing, it’s 2 1/2 miles. We ended our tour at the Old North Church, though, leaving off the USS Constitution and the Bunker Hill Memorial. The Constitution was closed the day we went, but we’ve been before and highly recommend it along with the adjacent museum and the USS Cassin Young, a WWII ship right by the Constitution.
There are tours available with costumed guides, and probably someday we should do one of those. But this time we downloaded an app instead. We got the one from Action Tour Guide–you download the app for free, but then you pay a few dollars to get the full tour. It’s one of those where you walk around and it knows where you are and starts talking when you get near the stop, which I always find at least slightly glitchy, but this one worked pretty well. It was hard to share between 6 people, though. We used it for awhile and thought it was well done, but eventually we got short on time and kids started to lose interest, so that we listened to less and less of the narration as we went along.
Historic stuff:
A famine statue! We felt like we were back in Ireland!
The layers of old and new all over the place in Boston is very cool:
After some purposeful wandering, we grabbed lunch at Quincy Marketplace (food court type situation) before moving along. There are a number of places where you can pay admission and go inside along the trail. We thought about doing the Old State House and the Old South Meeting House, but we ultimately decided that that would be too many museum type places in one day, particularly for Abe, since we knew we wanted to see Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church.
The last time we did the Freedom Trail, we toured the USS Constitution and the museum there; this time we did Paul Revere’s house and Old North Church. Trying to put much more than that into a day would make for a really long day, I think, particularly with kids. It would be really tricky logistically to even make it to all the museum type sites during the hours they’re open, in fact. Especially if you want lunch.
So, at any rate, we had a Paul Revere-centric day. There was maybe a 20 minute wait or so to get into his house, so I took some pictures:
The house has been restored to look like it did in Paul Revere’s day, when he was raising 16 kids and silversmithing and revolutionizing and all that. Admission is $6 for adults and $1 for kids up to 17. It’s a self guided tour, though the rooms are staffed with people who can answer questions and who are happy to talk about Paul Revere as much as you want. At the end there’s a small museum. The whole thing probably won’t take you more than half an hour or so. Unless you need to go to the bathroom. There was a long wait for the bathroom.
And then Old North Church, where Paul Revere used to hang out looking for lanterns and such. Admission here is $5/person, with no discounts for kids or anyone else. Honestly, that felt a little steep for our family of 6 . It’s again a self guided tour, and there’s no museum or anything; you go in and see the church, and there’s someone available to answer questions. It’s again a very quick stop.
That was the end of the Freedom Trail for us, but you can keep going to the Constitution and to the Bunker Hill monument. We’ve actually never made it to the Bunker Hill monument, which is a little sad. Next time!
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