We’re not normally big city people, but after so much time and thousands of kms driving around in more remote areas and parks, we thought an interesting way to finish our 2019 travels off would be by visiting 3 of USA’s larger cities being Boston, Washington DC and Chicago, none of which we have been to together.
Boston
We had been keen to visit this city for a while because of its history… think ‘tea party’ for example and we learned its a city with an immense amount of history so lets first stay with a little of that.
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| Welcome to Boston |
Boston was founded in 1630 by Puritans arriving from England either because of religious persecution or because they believed other churches had strayed too far from basic Christianity. They yearned a simple and pure lifestyle in the USA and started off in Boston.
Having decided they liked the port area of Boston, they also yearned for more land near the water, so started the process of re-claiming land from the sea by building wharves out into the bay then filling in behind the rock wall at the end of each wharf.
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| Faneuii Hall Marketplace shopping area near the harbour in Boston |
3 hills in Boston were either levelled or reduced to provide the dirt for the land re-claiming, and now 75% of Boston City is built on re-claimed land including the airport. We stayed in an older part of Boston, Beacon Hill, one of the hills reduced in height and is very close to this city, generally best viewed by walking.
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| Our land based travels within Boston |
Sometimes we use Hop On/Off buses to get a quick feel of a place and learn where we might want to re-visit. This time instead, we did a Segway tour around Boston focussed on learning more about the history of this delightful city.
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| Boston skyline including old section of Beacon Hill behind the bridge |
There were only 4 of us on the tour and a self professed history geek guide with an especially dry sense of humour.
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| Ready to roll through Boston on Segways |
So what did we learn and see?
We had heard a story about a person called Paul Revere who made the famous midnight ride warning other colonials about where the British red coats were heading prior to some important battles with them.
After seeing 2 lamps being swung high in a church steeple on one side of the bay back on 18th April, 1775, Revere rode on horseback through the night yelling the warning, “ the British are coming, the British are coming”.
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Memorial to Paul Revere and the famous church
the lamps were used in behind |
Well we did see the famous church from a distance where the lamps were used and whilst he did do this ride, there were about 40 other riders who scattered in multiple directions, but its considered very doubtful he yelled those words because at the time, the colonials still thought of themselves as British.
During the tour, we stopped to admire the USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironside, a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She is the world's oldest still commissioned naval vessel still afloat and was launched in 1797.
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| 'Old Ironsides' in Boston Harbour |
She got her name during a battle where the canon-balls from the opposing ship simple bounced off her hull because of the design and long leaf pine timber used in its construction.
Boston was home to where USA’s Declaration of Independence was drafted, so it was nice to look at the building this happened in. The Declaration was drafted in 1776 by a "Committee of Five", consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.
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| Old South House where Boston Tea Party protesters met |
56 people finally signed the Declaration but the first to sign was a John Hancock who did so with a BIG signature to ensure the King of England knew who it was without having to use glasses. This lead to a saying used ever since, “put your John Hancock on something”, meaning… put your signature on it.
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John Hancocks large signature on signed Declaration of Independence.
Photo sourced Google |
There is an old section in Boston town which is basically Italian called Northend with plenty of very narrow streets and not far away from this part of the city is where the 1919 molasses disaster occurred.
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| Example street in Northend, Boston |
In January 1919, the city suffered from the ‘Boston Molassacre’ which killed 21 people, injured 150 and destroyed buildings including a railway station.
It was a warmer winters day than normal (4 degress c) and 8,706,447 litres of molasses stored in a huge tank was being used to create alcohol/rum. The molasses had arrived the day before by ship and was already heated to improve viscosity for transfer into the massive tank.
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| Rob zipping down a street within the city area of Boston |
The molasses continued to expand and eventually caused the tank to burst explosively letting the molasses to flow at 35 kph and up to 8 metres high at its peak down a main street near Northend. People were crushed or drowned in the molasses, horses drowned and buildings were crushed.
There are 2 great parks near the centre of Boston, the Boston Common created in 1634 and the oldest city park in the United States, and the Boston Public Garden, the first botanical garden in America.
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From within Boston Common park and Massachusetts State House in Background.
Dome is covered in real gold because the State had a President of USA. |
On the border of the Boston Common are 2 English elms believed planted in 1780 by John Hancock, 10 years after Captain Cook bumped into Australia. They are still alive and being maintained as a part of Boston’s history. These are the 2 oldest English elms in the western hemisphere.
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| 239 year old English elms in Boston |
It was a fun and interesting tour and we celebrated by having dinner in America’s oldest restaurant, the Union Oyster House operating since 1826 but the building was built in 1704.
Bostonians constantly and very visibly love to jay walk and if they are caught, the fine is $1. If they are caught 5 times then the fine is $2!
We walked the ‘red brick’ Freedom Trail thanks to George, a street cleaner, who walked us some distance to find the trail again… such a nice gesture and the trail passes historical buildings and areas of Boston at the core of the story behind the American Revolution which effectively started in Boston after the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
Colonialists dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into Boston harbour because of a ‘tea tax’ imposed on colonialists by the British which they took major offence to.
On the walk we visited Copps Cemetry founded in 1659, the Skinny House built in 1862, walked through Northend with its skinny little streets and Italian restaurants everywhere, visited Paul Revere’s birth home and then the Old North Church where the signal lamps were waved for his famous ride.
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| Paul Revere's birth home, timber one on the right |
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| Example 1693 gravesite in Copps Cemetery Boston |
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| The Skinny House in Northend |
Boston was also well decorated for Halloween festivities which occurred whilst we were there, and it was really intriguing to see how much effort the locals put in to decorating the outside of their homes.
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| Examples of Halloween decorations outside individual homes |
Being such a historical city we also took a boat tour within the inner and outer Boston Harbours learning more about the Boston Tea Party and seeing where it happened, various islands in the harbour and enjoying views of the city skyline from a different perspective.
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| Our travels in Boston including the boat tour into the harbour |
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| City skyline from Boston Harbour |
Our final ‘event’ in Boston was to find, squeeze into and enjoy a drink in the Cheers Bar of TV show fame. It was a very popular destination and had a lot of character and characters in it.
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| Outside Cheers Bar in Boston |
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| Sunset in Beacon Hill street Boston |
Am confident many people have heard the word Amtrak of American railway fame, and this was how we travelled via New York to our next destination… Washington DC.
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| Amtrak train route from Boston to Washington DC |
Boston was a very enjoyable, slightly quirky and a nice city to visit and absorb its undoubted history.
Washington DC
We arrived into Washington DC planning to catch some local subway trains to reach our hotel. The platforms were packed with very happy people, mainly wearing something red and they were returning from a parade honouring their World Series baseball winners, the Washington Nationals who had their first win in 98 years!
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| Our travels within Washington DC |
We were back on Segways next morning for 3 hours touring past lots of monuments and other famous buildings. Included was the White House and whilst looking at it, 3 familiar looking helicopters arrived low in the sky, 2 acting as decoys and as it turned out, President Trump was on the one that landed on the lawns of the White House. Very nice of him to turn up but the White House itself is quite small!
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| The Washington Monument |
During the Segway tour, learned that Washington DC isn’t a State and it isn’t a territory like Guam or the Virgin Islands. DC in its name stands for District of Columbia and this means, that residents have no representation in the Senate. The Twenty-third Amendment, adopted in 1961, entitles the District to the same number of electoral votes as that of the least populous state in the election of the President and Vice President, a system we still don’t understand.
We visited both the Korean and Vietnam War Memorials which are both beautifully done before walking to the Arlington Cemetery.
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| Vietnam Memorial with names of all American soldiers who died etched into the wall |
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| Korean War Memorial with soldier reflections also on its rear wall |
Wow… a very moving place seeing ALL the white crosses disappearing in multiple directions some 400,000 of them spread across 624 acres or 253 ha. Certainly makes you stop and think.
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| Small section of some 400,000 graves in Arlington Cemetery |
As we walked within the cemetery, a horse drawn carriage with a coffin on it slowly passed us by which added to the atmosphere during our visit.
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| Another person on their way to be buried |
One grave we specifically visited was that of JFK or President John F Kennedy, with both the eternal flame fluttering gently in the wind nearby and his wife Jacqui O next to him.
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| JFKs gravesite with the eternal flame behind it |
We also tried to visit the 911 memorial next to the Pentagon but it was undergoing renovation. As we walked around the outside of the Pentagon, there were ‘No Photos’ signs and cameras everywhere. Couldn’t help myself… had to take a sneaky photo, not a good one but just had to do it.
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| At least no one was arrested for photographing The Pentagon |
Between the Capitol Building and Lincoln Memorial is The Mall, a large parkland area which has along its borders some of the famous Smithsonian Museums which are all free to enter, which most museums are. We visited 2 of them, the first being the Air & Space Museum.
History, history, history everywhere despite much of the museum being closed for renovations. The stand outs were peering into actual space capsules used by John Glenn and others to go into space. They were very small and cramped to say the least.
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| Join Glenn's space capsule |
Hanging above us were the X-1 rocket ‘plane’ that proved the sound barrier could be broken, V1 and V2 rockets used by the Nazis in WW 11 and in its own room, the Wright brothers actual plane which achieved first flight status. Lindberg’s Spirit of St Louis has pride of place as does Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit used when he stepped onto the moon.
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| V1 and V2 rockets used by Nazi's at end of WWII |
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| Neil Armstron's spaceship when he stepped onto the moon |
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| The Wright Brother's actual plane to first fly |
The Natural History Museum is very popular, especially for children but we specifically went to have a look at the Hope Diamond, a large, 45.52-carat (9.104 g), deep-blue diamond worth at todays price around $350M US! There were numerous other diamond exhibits including some worn by Marie Antionette etc. plus some excellent other displays throughout.
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| The Hope Diamond |
Washington DC has not enjoyed much of a reputation for being safe, especially at night but things have changed because there seemed to be all sorts of police everywhere. In fact Police type forces in Washington DC include:
US Marshals Service
US States Park Police
US Capitol Police
Metro Police Dept
US Secret Service
District of Columbia Protective Services
Washington DC reminded us a lot of a larger version of Canberra, very structured with developing personality whilst surrounded by memorials but our next city was a fairly short flight away and it was character rich… Chicago.
Chicago
Had been to this city once before with work for 1 night and had always said to Rob she needed to experience it also, and it started with the train from O’Hare Airport to the city which finished on those elevated tracks you see in the movies, running very close to houses and buildings either side of it.
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| Train on elevated tracks within the city |
Now Chicago doesn’t have one of the best reputations especially when it comes to gun based murders, but it wasn’t a situation we ever felt concerned about. This city has an interesting feel to it, slightly grimy and those raised rail lines visibly showing the effects of rust but exuding a distinct earthy character.
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| Grimy, rusted but interesting railway tracks in Chicago |
It was pretty cold when we arrived into Chicago due to the impact of the gulf-stream bringing very cold and unseasonal weather across the USA and it only got colder during our visit.
Strolled along the ‘magnificent mile’ otherwise known as Michigan Avenue and akin to 5th Avenue in New York with all its shops, then another walk down to Lake Michigan with plenty of wind streaming in off the lake and now and really cold, it even had waves on it, along with a large lighthouse.
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| Our travels within Chicago including a boat tour |
Love the architecture of all types in this city wherever we walked, including the Riverwalk which was different, as you’re right down at river level, the buildings seeming a lot higher and walking under all the old steel opening bridges. There was a very innovative wine bar near the river where guests sat in plastic igloos drinking and keeping warm.
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| The Chicago River runs through the city |
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| Small part of the 'magic mile' in Chicago |
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| View from shore of Lake Michigan back to the city of Chicago |
Highlight of our time in Chicago was doing a lake/river boat cruise just after sunset with temperatures having dropped to -3c, BUT the views of the city, architecture, lights and the sunset itself were worth standing out on deck and getting very cold.
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| Nice sunset over Chicago during lake section of our boat tour |
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| View along the river during boat tour |
Other activities included reaching the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower, formally the Sears Tower, admiring the view and Darian stepping out on the glass ledge to peer down at the ground nearly 0.5 km below him with the temperature at 10am a balmy 0c.
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| View from 103rd floor of the city and Lake Michigan |
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| Stepping out onto the glass then looking down 103 floors up |
Continued to be fascinated watching the older trains rattling around on the above ground rail tracks between the city buildings and cars driving underneath them before ducking into Macy’s to have a look at a beautiful ceiling made of Tiffany glass, and then into the Cultural Centre where there is the largest Tiffany glass dome in the world.
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| Both ceilings made using Tiffany glass |
We finished off with a pleasant few hours and dinner at Andy’s Jazz Bar enjoying dinner and listening to some very nice live music with temperatures outside having dropped dramatically to -9c.
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| The music was really good |
So after over 9 weeks away in total, it was time to eventually board our flight to Los Angeles before then settling in for a Bundy rum and coke on the plane with a large red kangaroo on its tail as we headed back home. It had been different, full of many learnings and some great scenery.
Until next time in 2020… go well!
