Loving more of Boston

 What a beautiful city! It's so historical. The traffic might be very slow at times, but they have a great transit system, which we used today. We also walked a lot.

We met the Jacques from Maine at our nearby "T" terminal and rode the Red Line to downtown

 We only got lost once walking to the Long Wharf area to catch our ferry over to the Naval Yard. 

Me, Mike, Charles and Nancy Jacques

Boston skyline. It was a gorgeous day. A bit breezy, but nice. 

We saw some whimsical sculptures on our way to tour the Constitution ship. We saw an historic Dry Dock, too! 

And everywhere there is lawn furniture, of course it is ADIRONDACK chairs! 

There were supposed to be three of these sculptures in the wharf area, but I only saw two. Tandy has a picture of Ella and Lexi at the NYC Oculus with that same "Arms if Friendship" sculpture in 2024. Who would have thought something that large could be Transported???!!!

Here's Tandy's photo:

Crazy! And impressive that Tandy could find and share that photo, too😀.

I took lots of photos on and inside Ol' Ironsides. We tagged along with a guided tour group, led by a sailor. It was all very interesting. We went into the Naval Shipyard Visitors Center after the ship, because it was smaller than the USS Constitution Museum, which was THREE BUILDINGS HUGE. No thank you. I'm sure it would have been interesting, but we didn't have that much time to spend in one museum.

Boat pictures 

 Well, PRE- boat. Haha

A double wheel, because the rudder weighs a LOT.

Wooden tie-off things. Lots of wood 

Big tall masts, wide spars. LOTS of rope.

Lots more rope, wood pulley things, big iron hooks. These are around some cannons. 

Below deck cannons. 15 men to operate one. 

After a while of walking ( and ducking ) around the FIRST lower deck of guns, I noticed that each cannon had a name.

The Constitution was copper clad under water and outside to keep barnacles from attaching.

This was the kitchen cook stove area. I think. About 350 men were aboard who needed to be fed.

These were some of the tools and weapons of war for firing the cannons. 

This tiny little porthole and probably less than 2 dozen others were the ONLY portholes for air or light on the sleeping deck. They were very tiny and very sparse.

And then we walked on. And did NOT have to back track and did NOT get lost, because we followed the Freedom Trail. Up and over the bridge to North Boston to the North Church. 

Walking over the bridge which had cables strung in the guard railing was interesting. The wind was blowing hard enough to make the rows of horizontal cables whistle. 

A funny face I found on our walk.

We almost walked right past Paul Revere's Home. Didn't stop to tour it. It seemed fairly crowded, and I know how tiny colonial homes are!

We found Paul Revere's statue in a lovely square with trees and informative bronze plaques all around. We also stepped to a significant old cemetery where many of those patriots are buried.

Here is the steeple of the Old North Church. About here was when Mike decided he'd had enough walking. His back hurt. We sat down in a nice family run, fairly new ( established in 2021)  Italian restaurant and spent WAY too much money on our lunch there. It was good.

And then we walked some MORE and headed to Fanuel Hall and Quincy Market and the Old State House. Thankfully, the Old State House was also the subway station, so we took it back to Quincy and our hotel. We were so tuckered out and it wasn't even 4 pm.

Here is the exterior of Paul Revere's house.

Inside the town hall room in Fanuel Hall. That's the name of the architect. It's a lovely space and they've restored or preserved it well. Ranger-led lectures are given

Quincy Market. It's just commercial stores/food along both sides, and a nice Rotunda in the center. I guess another of the gathering spots for Patriots. We grabbed dessert there. And Mike rested on a bench.

Fancy spiral staircase inside the Old State House. It had not only the Metro station UNDER IT, but a gift shop on one end and a museum on the other. I did not pay to go in the museum. I was museum-ed out for today.

But the Old State House does have a pretty golden lion on the roof.

This is a flat-iron shaped building , but I didn't take the photo from the right angle to see that. The old buildings and the varied architecture is so gorgeous!

This is outside the old state house. Site of Boston Massacre.

Too bad the sun wasn't shining on those golden statues on top of this old state house.

Just some pretty and old buildings.

One thing Mike and I noticed yesterday in the Bunker hill area of Charleston was the historic homes had markers on them. They were small plaques, but said whose home it had been and what year.

Downtown Boston was an adventure today!

We walked over the Bill Russell Bridge faster today than we drove over it yester-- both times! 

No telling what traffic will be like tomorrow as we head out to Lexington and Concord (and Belmont).