Strom Travel Diaries

Day 7 – Friday, October 21

I was able to sleep in a little bit Friday morning since Mom and I weren’t meeting until later. Abby and I had some tea before I got dressed, then we had our much-anticipated bagel bacon butties. Abby made some improvised brown sauce to put on hers, but I stuck with just bacon and butter.

After breakfast, I made my way down to the bus stop in order to catch the express bus back to Boston. By that time it was about 9:30, so a lot of the rush hour traffic had cleared up. I got into Boston just before 10, and walked over to meet Mom at Boston Commons. We met at the Visitors Center there and got a self-guide book for the Freedom Trail (along with some postcards, a spoon, and a magnet). Altogether, the Freedom Trail is something like 2 ½ miles long, and by doing a self-guided tour, we could go at our own pace and decide how long we wanted to stop at each location. 

We started at Shaw’s Monument, across the street from the State House. Then, we walked back down through the park to the Park Street Church. We lingered at the Granary Burying Ground in order to see the resting places of many iconic figures, like Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and Mother Goose. A man had positioned himself just outside the cemetery and had guides he had compiled himself to take through the cemetery. We were very appreciative of that as we wouldn’t have found some of the significant areas without it.

We didn’t linger nearly as long at King’s Chapel, the Boston Latin School Site, Old Corner Bookstore (now the Old Corner Chipotle), Old South Meeting House, or Old State House. In fact, the rest of the walk, we followed the brick path that delineated the Freedom Trail and just paused briefly to take in the sites like Faneuil Hall, the Paul Revere House, and the Old North Church before we walked on. We went into the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground just to see it better, but didn’t poke around. Some of the sites we saw along the way were just about as interesting as the official sites on the Freedom Trail, like the façade on the Tremont Temple Baptist Church, the farmers market we walked through, or the extremely narrow house across from Copp’s Hill Burying Ground.

Copp’s Hill was the last stop on the downtown Boston side of the Charles River, so we walked across the temporary bridge to Charlestown. There we saw City Square Park before walking down the waterfront to the Charlestown Navy Yard, which is a National Park. Did I bring my National Parks passport? No. But never fear! The gift shop was prepared for people like me and sold strips of round stickers you could stamp and then stick in your passport later. We walked over to see the USS Constitution as well as the USS Casein Young before we went in the gift shop so I could get those stamp stickers for my National Park passport. After that, it was up to the Bunker Hill Monument before heading back to the City Square Park. 

By that time we were a bit hungry, so we stopped at Tatte to get a light lunch, a Mediterranean farro salad each as well as berries for me and a tuna salad for Mom. It hit the spot and we were ready for the next adventure!

From Tatte, we got a Lyft to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which was on our must-see list. I’d been on a previous trip, but Mom never had. We got there almost exactly at 2:30 and were able to go right in as I’d purchased our tickets over lunch. We started at the top of the Palace and worked out way down, nearly overwhelmed at everything there was to see. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (or the Bella) is one of my absolute favorites as the collection is displayed in a unique fashion—more like a personal collection that has been accumulated and loved over many years, which of course it was. Ancient art is displayed in juxtaposition to more contemporary pieces, which serves to highlight themes or methodology that have carried through decades or centuries.

We stayed at the museum until just after closing time (we had to visit the gift shop after all). Then, we walked down to the Museum of Fine Arts subway stop so we could head back into town. Mom was going back to the hotel, but I was meeting some friends for dinner and a play, so I got off first, reminding Mom that we’d be meeting in Cambridge the next afternoon and which subway to take. 

I got to the general area about an hour earlier than anticipated, so I sat in the Christian Science Plaza for a while and caught up on my journaling. There was a circular, in-ground fountain and a couple of guys ran to the middle while the arcs of water were low, then got stuck in the middle when the fountain increased its water arc height. They finally took off their shoes and dashed back through.

I met my friends at a restaurant called Clover Food Lab. It was an excellent choice—I had hummus with rainbow carrots and warm pita, with an Asian pear lemonade. We spent some time catching up and eating before heading to the Boston Conservatory Theater for their production of As You Like It. 

All four of us had spent time studying together in England and had seen As You Like It performed at The Globe. It had been an incredible production, so we agreed that this would have a lot to live up to. Three of us had no expectations going into it, so we were surprised when the first actor on stage burst into song.

It turned out that this was a reimagined As You Like It, developed in 2017 by Laurie Woolery and Shaina Taub. It used much of Shakespeare’s original dialogue, but also utilized modern musical numbers to propel much of the character development and action. As the lights cut at the end, the audience rose, en masse, for a standing ovation. It had been wonderful. We couldn’t stop talking about it as we left the theater. In fact, we were still raving about it the next day!

Three of us were heading back to Waltham after the play, so we got a Lyft. By that time of night, traffic was minimal, so we were there in less than 20 minutes. Abby and I agreed on a cup of tea before collapsing into our beds.