Wanna go on vacation to Boston and New England?

That's what I am up to this week!

My husband and I are notoriously poor vacation planners (I like to call us "spontaneous"...that's my story and I'm sticking to it...) but having been to Boston before, we knew the traffic was uber stressful and would be a nightmare.  In all the times I had visited Boston before (15+ times), there has always been a LOUD argument brought on by the road conditions - between construction, tourists, one way streets and jammed roads, it's a headache every time.  Mind you, these arguments often arose between people who knew the city so I couldn't even imagine my husband and I navigating it with our very sketchy knowledge.  So, we decided to do something different in hopes of avoiding world war three.

After brief, hurried and yet careful decision making process the day before we left (ha ha!), we chose the Boston Upper Deck Trolley Tours company - thanks primarily to reviews on tripadvisor.com.!  We had never been on a tour of this kind before but thought it would be fun to try it.  It turned out to be fantastic!

Here's why:

1) Great seats- high up enough to see everything, since for the Boston portion, it's got the upper deck.
2) For the ticket price of $108 for four people, we got two days of trolley riding, with sightseeing/historical commentary and advice for all the stops. There were 21 stops on the Boston loop and just one on the Cambridge loop, at Harvard Square.
3) Also included was an hour long boat ride either along the Charles River or in the Boston Harbor.  We chose the Charles River.
4) We could get on and off as much as we wanted over the two days.
5) Parking was only $4 a day at the Cambridgeside Galleria, with the tickets we got.

The only downside was the sketchiness to the actual schedule (i.e. no times are printed).  Timing is not in any of the brochures BUT there are manned booths and they are pretty good at telling you the accurate schedules. The only reason I can think of for this lack of printed times is the absolute insanity of Boston traffic and the inability to predict exact times.  Trolleys keepscoming by and we never waited more than 10 minutes so it wasn't a problem.

Enough with the commercial (unpaid and unknown by the company, FYI...)!  Onward to the photos:

MIT Co-Op Store:

Cheers (sign and arrow) - that's pretty much where the resemblance to the show begins and ends.

Oldest Fire Station in the Country (built around 1782ish):  Building had to be dug down into to fit today's sized trucks.  Note how the trucks slope backwards into their slots.

John Hancock Tower (Boston's tallest skyscraper designed by I.M. Pei): reflects everything around it, most importantly Trinity Church.  Isn't that cool?

Front of Trinity Church:

Fenway Park (not the best photo, but you get the idea...):

Diner featured in Spiderman - open 24/7, 365 days a year.

My husband and I at Quincy Market:

U.S.S. Constitution, oldest commissioned battleship. Closed for touring on Mondays :-(

Entrance to Harvard Yard off Harvard Square.  Yellow Building is where Washington ran much of the Revolutionary War efforts.

Harvard Yard:

Skyline of Boston:

More to come later.

I hope everyone is having a great week!

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