Monday, August 31, 2015

Bucket List ~ Boston

Boston has always been on our Bucket List so this was the year!  The history … the fact that our founding fathers started here … our Freedom started here … it was a must do/see for us.

Forget all those stereotypes of Bostonians that you’ve heard about or think you know cause we learned from Day 1 that none of them are true.  Bostonians are really friendly, nice, helpful people … at least from our week in Boston and up and down Cape Cod.  We were very pleasantly surprised about that … none of the stereotypical grumpy grouchy attitudes that you hear about … nope … everyone we talked with or dealt with were super nice, almost as nice as Southerners but with a Boston accent.  Really!

We arrived on a Friday morning and after settling in in our hotel rooms at Embassy Suites Logan Airport we set out walking to a restaurant on my list but halfway there we decided to call to make sure they were open … nope, they were on vacation for the weekend.  So by happenstance we saw a Mom and Pop pizza place on the corner “Santarpio’s Pizza” in East Boston and decided to give it a try.  A great decision.  We were practically the first customers in for lunch in the little hole in the wall place and were made to feel at home right away.  After all the chit chat “where are you from, how long will you be here, etc.” and discovering our server is a huge Falcon’s fan … over their stereo system speakers we hear the Ray Charles song “Georgia” and my sister and I look at each other and are like “wow, what a coincidence” but it wasn’t … they put it on specifically for us.  That’s the kind of place it was.  Our server even suggested other Boston restaurants we just had to try along with recommending we must see Little Italy and visit Modern Pastry … all were winners.  We loved this place and its authentic Italian pizza (nothing much else on their menu) so much so that we ate there a second time later in our stay.  I will crave that pizza forever!!!  That good!  
More about our EATS later …

First day was getting to know the place so we walked to the nearby Airport MBTA station, bought week long passes for $19 a person (includes unlimited use of subway, buses and water shuttle) and headed into downtown to take a narrated trolley tour on “Old Town Trolley Tours”, always a must in visiting any place, in my opinion.  And let me tell ya'll .. Boston is the most beautiful city ... clean, neat, tidy ... we felt safe walking anywhere!  So impressed!!!

Here’s just a little of what we saw that first day (pics are a little out of order but you get the gist).

























Good walking shoes are a MUST ... I knew this but didn't realize we would
log in 6.5 miles of walking that first day!  Yikes!  My feet hated me later.