This has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the United States. You can easily get around on foot, or by the T – the public transport system – the oldest underground railway in the US. Actually, quite a lot of Boston is the oldest. The city was one of the earliest founded by the Pilgrim Fathers. It is also where the Boston Tea Party took place, one of the contributing factors to the war of independence and supposedly where the plots were hatched to overthrow the British.

We’ve spent a good couple of days wandering the city and taking in the sights. After arriving on Saturday night we spent Sunday morning on a walking tour with a Park Ranger as a guide. Boston is old by American standards and a number of the buildings are classed as part of the National Park system. I get the impression that it’s a bit of a new idea as it wasn’t so long ago that they were considering selling the Old State House (1713) to Chicago, up until then heritage wasn’t as important to the city as it should have been.

After the tour we wandered a bit more before joining Park Street Church on Boston Common for an outdoor service. There were about 500 people there, despite the unseasonably damp conditions. I get the impression that the weather has been nicer back home than it has been here.

Today we did a bit more wandering and found ourselves at Fenway Park. Fenway is the home of the Boston Red Sox and is the oldest baseball park in use in the national league (opened in 1912). It’s also one of the smallest, only being able to seat around 37,000 fans. We took a tour and had a great look around (see picture) and also found out about tickets for a game on Saturday evening when we get back to town. We will have to queue (or line up as queue isn’t an American word) and try to get one of the last 300 on sale. Boston are doing pretty well at the moment so it’s even more difficult to get a seat.

We then did a bit more hanging around before taking a sunset cruise around the harbour. Pretty interesting, especially being underneath the flightpath to the 10th busiest airport in the US. The boat loitered around waiting for the cannon to go off on the USS Constitution, a veteran of the war of independence and still with a serving crew on board (a bit like the Victory), which signals sunset and the time to lower the flag. It also meant that we could take a look at Boston as the sun set.

Tomorrow we hit the road up into the mountains of New Hampshire and then on to the coast of Maine. Will update later in the week when I’m a bit more awake.