Boston Sunny temp25c
Throughout the night we cruised across the Massachusetts Bay
which is a bay on the Atlantic Ocean that forms part of the coastline of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The western most point of the bay is in the City
of Boston. A little bit of trivia for you is that in 2006 the port handled over
208000 cruise ship passengers and 81 cruise ship visits.
Today started off with breakfast in our cabin because we had
an early tour. We were scheduled to meet in the Princess Theatre at 7.30am.
However we received a noticed in our cabin that we also had to be in the Vista
Lounge at that time for a face to face immigration inspection. We went down to
the Vista at 7.20am to be greeted with a queue that stretched from the Vista to
the Princess Theatre which is the length of the ship. By the time the doors of
the Vista opened the queue had grown half way back again. All this could have
been avoided if an announcement had been made that if you queue up before your
scheduled time you will not be allowed to enter the Vista until your allotted
time. Then perhaps there would be no queues. Once the process started the queue
did move fairly quickly but we were still late for our tour but they waited.
On our tour we headed first to the historic towns of
Lexington and Concord where we heard about the battles which took place between
the British Troops and the Minutemen. We visited the Old North Bridge which has
been restored. The bridge is famous for the “shot heard ‘round the world” which
began the American Revolution. Paul Revere fired the shot to warn the Minutemen
that the British forces were coming supposedly to arrest the ringleaders of the
uprising. On the way back to Boston we went through Harvard University, past
many of the Halls of one of Americas oldest and most prestigious universities.
We also went through Harvard Square with its shops and restaurants. In Boston
we stopped at Quincy Market for lunch. Quincy Market is a long building with an
open mall type areas each side. The building is a food court with very little
seating. The outside has some eating places and stalls selling odds and ends.
We did buy our lunch there which was a roll containing brisket beef and onions
served with chips. We shared one and even then there was too much food. Should
we return to Boston in the future we will not be going to Quincy Market. From
the market we went on a walk to the Congregational Church used by the Minutemen
to signal which way the British were going to attack. Two lanterns were put on
the steeple and depending which way they were coming the lanterns were put in
front or behind. The church was one of the first in Boston and it had separate partitioned
off pews for families each complete with a door and some decorated with wall
paper. On the way back to the ship we saw many of Boston’s public buildings.
Tonight after dinner we decided to have an early night.
Coral says she is going back to her cabin and going out later to listen to the
Dawn Princess Orchestra play Jazz. It will be interesting to see if she
actually makes it. Tomorrow we will be in New London but at least it is not an
early start.
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