The Liberty

We are staying at an iconic hotel called the Liberty, which is a great blend of history as well as all the modern conveniences of a Marriott luxury collection hotel. This hotel was built around the original Boston jail hotel on Charles Street. This jail, originally the Charles Street jail, dates back to 1851. They even have a few rooms that are literally from the original jail cells with the original bars in the rooms. A perfect place for two criminals like us!

Guest Room

Clink

Dining at the hotel restaurant “Clink”. If you are a Marriott Bonvoy member, be sure to choose the breakfast vouchers versus Marriott points as you only get 1000 points for the entire stay which is equivalent to about $20 and each breakfast voucher per day for 2 is $72, enough to choose from a variety of breakfast selections with leftovers for tips!

Day 1

Today we enjoyed walking along the Freedom Trail in Boston, which is a walking trail that connects a number of iconic historical sites, including museums, churches, meeting houses, cemeteries, parks, revolutionary era ships like Old Ironsides… and other historic markers that really give you a feel of American history and the American revolution.

Paul Revere’s House

One of the sites along the Freedom Trail that we really enjoyed was the Paul Revere house. We learned a number of interesting facts, including that he was the son of French immigrants, and that he learned the silversmith trade from his father, which took him into amateur dentistry as well.

It also seems that he was sent by the US government to learn the art of copper rolling in Europe. He extracted those trade secrets and brought them back to America, so he was somewhat of a commercial intelligence, espionage guy! He also used these copper plate techniques to create a number of artworks, including a famous engraving depicting the 1770 Boston massacre, which helped act as a propaganda piece to mobilize colonial sentiment against the British government.

He also created and led a spy ring, and came up with a number of techniques to share information, including the famous 1 and 2 lantern signals to indicate whether the regulars were coming by sea or by land.

Rather obvious, but also somewhat interesting is the fact that he never yelled “the British are coming! The British are coming!”. At the time, most people would’ve considered themselves British and so that would not have had much meaning. Instead, he would have secretly visited certain patriots to tell them “the regulars are coming”, meaning regular members of the British army, as opposed to colonial militia.

Perhaps one of the most interesting facts is that, one of his 16 kids, his daughter, Maria, married an international businessman and moved to Asia. Her husband became the first American consul to Singapore, where she commissioned her father to build a bell, which he did, and was then shipped to the Saint Andrew Church in Singapore

We came across a bakery shop in Little Italy as we explore the Freedom Trail with lots of attractive desserts that I thought I should share…

We had dinner at Legal Sea Foods at the Long Wharf. I loved the clam chowder soup a lot, very creamy and flavorful. The hot lobster roll with butter however was a bit dry, maybe cold lobster roll with mayo would please my palette more…. The lobster roll was fairly pricey, $46 per order. Overall, it was a great dining experience!

After dinner, we took a walk along the Long Wharf and then headed to Quincy Market. I was intrigued by the buildings along the way, most of them retained older style architecture.

Here’s a piece of modern art with 4 panels … those with artistic talents may be able to interpret and enjoy the creation.

Some beautiful infrastructure in the Boston financial district…

Quincy Market or Faneuil Hall Marketplace

This place is part of the Freedom Trail. It was originally built by Peter Faneuil, one of the wealthiest businessman at the time, in the 1700s, meant to provide a central marketplace for vendors of all sorts to meet and sell/trade.

Around 1820, the mayor of Boston at the time, Josiah Quincy, expanded the Faneuil Hall Marketplace to include Quincy Market due to the growth in Boston. The market was named after the mayor as the construction organized by him was entirely tax and debt free.

The marketplace became dilapidated in mid-1900s and was later reconstructed and is known as the “festival marketplace”.

Quincy Market offers a wide variety of different ethnic foods from various parts of the world ranging from Italian, Asian, Indian, American, to Boston famous lobster rolls and clam chowder soup. There are also vendors selling souvenirs and little trinkets at the marketplace. It is also a gathering place for different groups of people to perform street dancing, music etc. at the open space by the market.

Day 2

Today we visited The Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. We participated in an hour private group tour at the museum where tour guides dressed in costumes during the revolutionary era acted out certain scenes that took place the night before the Boston Tea Party. Several short clips/movies were shown as part of the tour to further elaborate the history that led to the revolutionary war. Our group boarded Eleanor ship and toured the deck and the living areas of the crews. The tour was informative and enjoyable, definitely worth joining.

Union Oyster House

We had dinner at Union Oyster House. This was a fun place, we met a wonderful friend from our time in San Diego who now lives in Boston, she told us this is where the tourists come. But the food was alright and the history is interesting. The restaurant is 200 years old and is a national historic landmark, having opened originally as the Atwood and Bacon Oyster House in 1826. History indicates that after it opened, the restaurant became very popular with Boston’s elite, John Hancock, John Adams and Daniel Webster, apparently gathered there frequently for food and drinks enjoying the oyster plates. Chowder was pretty good. This restaurant claims to be the oldest restaurant in Boston and has been frequented by a number of famous individuals. The building itself dates back to 1713 and apparently once had a tailor shop on the ground floor and lodgings on the upper floor.

Day 3

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Today we went to visit the Isabella Gardiner museum, an art museum next to the museum of fine arts and not far from Fenway Park. It was established by Isabella Stewart Gardner, an American art collector, using funds she inherited from her father and her husband, accounting to around $5 million in the late 1890s. By some measures, that would be equivalent to $200 million today, which is obviously a fair amount of money, but also not a lot of money when it comes to collecting significant works of art, which is a testament to Gardiner’s ability to procure important works of art through her industry and significant energy.                                                      

She traveled the world, in search of experience and learning, and acquired these works, wherever she went, including significant artwork from Asia, as well as Europe, and America, including many paintings, but also sculptures, antique furniture, tapestries, and fresco, and many other decorative works of art.

They are all housed in a, four-story museum, which was built specifically for this purpose and designed to look like a venetian palace with an open atrium and courtyard in the middle of the palace, making for an extremely unique and captivating look that engages all of the senses.

One of the interesting aspects of the museum is that there are a number of empty frames and spaces where certain works of art were stolen early in the morning in 1990, when two men disguised as Boston policeman entered the museum claiming to be following up on a reported burglary. They overpowered the night guards and in a little over an hour, stole 13 works of art worth approximately $500 million, which is the greatest known property theft in history. The works included a painting by Vermeer, as well as a Rembrandt painting of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. This theft remains unsolved, despite a reward being offered by the museum and monitoring of criminal art auctions to see if any of the pieces surfaced. There is also a Netflix documentary about this art theft entitled “This is a Robbery”. Having visited the museum, I am very intrigued and planned to watch the documentary.

It was Isabella’s will that all the paintings and sculptures in the museum could not be moved from their original positions, only the empty frames of the stolen paintings were seen at various spots where the originals were placed. The administrators had to build coverings to protect the paintings placed in direct sunlight, which could damage the paintings, to observe specifications under Isabella’s will.

There were many Christ-centered art pieces on display at the museum which I particularly enjoyed, especially the piece which depicts the timeline of Christ crucifixion and resurrection.

This portrait depicts a more realistic physique and facial characteristics of Hercules, unlike many of the muscle-bound portrayals.

The museum is a fascinating place, and certainly lives up to Gardner’s aspirations to create a place where people can come, and engage all of their senses and find art that stimulates their creativity in ways that are personal and individual to them. It is a wonderful place to visit, be sure to book your tickets in advance as the tickets were sold out on the day that we went to visit. We are grateful to a dear friend who has been living in Boston the last few years and told us that this is her number one destination in the area, definitely a place to put on your itinerary. Different than many other museums and a great place to visit, don’t forget to take the public tour, they are only 30 minutes and are filled with a wealth of information. Enjoy!

Jiang Nan

We had dinner at Jiang Nan with a dear friend. The food was delicious especially the sweet and sour fish (糖醋松鼠鱼), braised eggplants (鱼香茄子),and Chinese cabbage (娃娃菜).

Day 4

The USS Constitution

Today we continued our walk along the freedom Trail throughout Boston. This trail runs a little over 2 miles and wines through a number of Boston historical sites that are important in the founding of Boston and the American revolution. The USS Constitution is arguably one of the most interesting, this navy ship was also known as Old Ironsides, as it was the first battleship of its time that was built with extremely strong oak along the sides for protection and durability, with the hull being re-sheathed with copper in 1802. The ship was built in 1797, which makes it the oldest commissioned warship that is still afloat anywhere in the world.

It was extremely interesting to go on board the ship and experience a little bit of what life would have been like for soldier in the Navy over 200 years ago. the ship is over 200 feet long and includes copper fastenings that were designed by Paul Revere. It has three enormous mast that rise up as high as 220 feet. That was built with extremely strong oak along the sides for protection and durability, with the hull being re-sheathed with copper in 1802. The entire ship would be manned by a crew of nearly 500, which was amazing given how relatively small the vessel is, the sleeping quarters on the bottom level were definitely very cramped!

The ship captain got his own quarters, small like a closet.

This ship was built to combine speed with tremendous firepower and fought a number of battles against the British during the war of 1812. This included a famous battle against the British frigate HMS Guerriere. During the battle the two ships collided and nearly capsized, but they still continued to fight, and in the end, the constitution prevailed as most of the cannonballs shot against her, simply bounced off the wall because of how it was built, reinforcing her name of Old Ironsides.

Navy Yard

From the USS Constitution, we walked the freedom trail for about a mile to Bunker HIll.

Bunker Hill

The Bunkerhill monument is one of the key stops along the Freedom Trail. I had heard about the battle of Bunker Hill before, but really never knew the context. The park ranger gave us an overview and explained that the battle of Bunker Hill was arguably the most important battle of the revolution, which led me to assume that the colonialists must have won, which is not the case, the British prevailed, but that’s not the entire story.

The timeframe was early 1775, and tensions between British troops and colonialist were clearly escalating. The colonial militia men had started to mobilize for war, while in Boston. The British troops had retreated to their camp as they prepared to quash the rebellion. On June 17, the British regulars came across Boston Harbor and began to move against the militiamen in Charlestown. The militiamen had built fortifications there, and were careful not to waste gunpowder as the British advanced. As a result, as the British troops advanced and the militiamen fired on them. Many British troops were killed. The British retreated, and then pushed up the hill again, only to face another volley of shots from the militiamen. One more try, the third time, which is when the militiamen ran out of powder and shot, and the British broke through their lines and engaged in hand to hand fighting.

The British were ultimately victorious, but at a great cost, with an estimated 1500 casualties, over 1000 of them British. The British had expected to easily overrun the militiamen and the costly battle buoyed the spirits of the militiamen and served as a warning to the British that future fights would not be easily won.

On the other hand, although they lost, the patriots were definitely not demoralized, and many of those who fought at Bunker Hill formed the nucleus of the continental army, which was then transformed into a coordinated fighting force under the leadership of George Washington, who assumed command two weeks after this battle.

Massachusetts State House

MIT

Harvard University

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *