New Campus, Boston Common & OMG My Poor Aching Feet

After I left the Poe statue I continued down Boylston Street and was surprised to stumble on Emerson's new campus.  I totally forgot that they moved to this part of town.  To me it seems very crowded and cramped compared to the brownstones and dorms on Beacon.  But at least the whole campus is one place, instead of being as spread out as it was in the 80s.

Of course I had to stop into the bookstore to pick up a couple of souvenirs.  In my day the bookstore was awful, and in the basement of 100 Beacon Street.  It was tiny and cramped and stuffy.  There was a nicer store that sold tshirts and stuff in the Student Union.  Now it's all in one Barnes & Noble and is very nice.

Turning the corner onto Tremont Street, I noticed this ancient cemetery in Boston Common.  If I knew this was there in the past, I totally forgot about it.  I really didn't remember ever seeing this before.  

Across the street from Boston Common is this awesome tilework on the Masonic Lodge.

Another statue in the Common on the Tremont Street side.

By this point I was really humping it to get back to the bus station....it was 12:40 and the bus was set to leave at 1:15.

Downtown Crossing again.

Uh-oh!  The British are coming! The British are coming!  

Wow what a great day!  The weather was perfect...not too hot at all but comfortable for this epic walking tour.  And that's what's so great about Boston, you can do the entire city in just a few short hours (if you skip museums and tours).  I made it back to South Station by 1:00 pm and home by 2:30. My feet were absolutely screaming when I got on the bus and my back kinda went out a little bit too...this was an ambitious first walking day trip of the year. This is a map of the area I visited with a poorly drawn red line to show where I walked.  Started on the right side, worked my way to the top, then over to the far left and back to the right.  No idea how many miles it was, but I'm guessing at least 4-5.

I hope you enjoyed my tour of Beantown!

Government Center & Beacon Hill

After lunch, we headed out of Quincy Market and up through Government Center.  This seems to be continually under construction because there was always construction when I lived in Boston in the 80s. Now they appear to be remodeling the T (subway) station.

This is the famous giant steaming tea kettle.  You can't see it, but there was steam coming out of it. It was originally placed in Scollay Square in the 1800s and continues to operate to this day.

John Adams Courthouse.  Not sure if it's still a courthouse or if that's just the building's name.

I do not remember this gigantic crescent shaped building when I lived there.  It's so big and it had to have been there but maybe I never noticed it.  According to Wikipedia it was built in 1969.

Don't think this bike's going anywhere soon!

I decided to take Cheryl around Beacon Hill, since it's absolutely gorgeous and very, very old.  We passed this memorial to Robert Gould Shaw, the Col. of the Massachusetts 54th, the first African American regimen in the US Army, who fought in the Civil War.  It's across from the State House and on Boston Common.

The buildings on Beacon Hill are huge.

Hard to see from this picture but there were quite a few trees on that rooftop garden.

Beacon Street.  I lived really close to all of this at the Emerson dorms.

We went back into the neighbourhood, which are full of narrow, quiet streets and expensive homes and townhomes.

This is Louisburg Square, one of the priciest neighbourhoods in the country.  A townhouse sold for 11,500,000 in 2011.

And this is Acorn Street, a one block-long cobblestone street which is extremely picturesque, as you can see.  But not easy to walk on.  The brick sidewalk is also very narrow.

And looking up Acorn.

Back on Boston Common. It was getting near time for me to head back to get the bus home, so we walked back to South Station.

Downtown Crossing again.

Putting up the Christmas tree at Macy's.

I need one of these rainbow shimmery things in my yard!

This is near South Station; I always got a kick out of how it looks top heavy because of the narrow base.

Also near S. Station.

What a great day and how awesome to finally meet Cheryl after 35 years!!!!!