Boston Trip Post #3: Freedom Trail, Aquarium, Art Museums, USS Constitution

Our last few days in Boston included more museums (surprise, surprise!) and some other historic sites. We tried to go to the USS Constitution first, but found that it was closed on that particular day of the week. So we followed the Freedom Trail to the Bunker Hill Memorial at ate lunch there.

 

Sam was much more interested in walking along the Freedom Trail once he realized that there were bricks outlining the direction to walk. I think that he felt some connection to Oz and the Yellow Brick Road in a roundabout way. I also loved that he wanted to take his new tricorn hat with him. He didn't wear the hat much during the day (he was a little worried that people might mistake him for one of the historical actors we had seen), but he carried it all day long without complaint.

Then we walked to the Old North Church and Paul Revere's Home. We then walked to Faneuil Hall and stayed there for a bit to get warm.

 Old North Church

At this point in the day, we could tell that we needed to do an indoor activity that would be exciting and interesting for Sam. So we walked a few blocks over to the aquarium. It was a really fun space and we all saw interesting sea creatures that we had never seen before (including the sea dragon and the garden eels). Lucy slept through the whole aquarium experience and didn't get to see any of the brightly colored creatures, unfortunately, but I'm glad that she was able to have a good nap.

That night we ate dinner at Durgin-Park to have some local specialties like baked beans and clam chowder. It was one of our favorite meals of the trip.

The next day involved visits to two art museums, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ISG) and the Museum of Fine Arts. I have wanted to visit the Gardner Museum for years, after learning more about Isabella Stewart Gardner and also the famous 1990 heist. In fact, going to this museum was a big impetus for us to take this trip. I plan to write more about this museum on my art history blog in the future, so I won't take time to write much about my experience here. I will say, though, that I was struck by one painting that I discovered: Dewing's Lady in Yellow (1888). I only have a few photos from the visit, since photos are only allowed to be taken in the garden court area.

We went to the Museum of Fine Arts (which is just across the street from the ISG Museum) in the afternoon. It was so neat to go to this museum and see works of art that I discuss in my classes. I also discovered other new paintings that I liked, too, like Merson's Rest on the Flight to Egypt (1879), Webbe's Rabbit amid Ferns and Flowering Plants (1855), Grimshaw's Old English House by Moonlight (1883), and Hammershøi's Woman in an Interior (1900-09). 

 We ended up renting a device for a kid's audio tour for Sam, which ended up being a great idea. He was entertained the whole time, just merely because he had a device to hold and buttons to push. He listened to every single audio track for kids that he saw listed on the walls, and I even once heard him murmur "Interesting!" to himself as the track finished.

Enjoying the art pieces Topia Chairs by Barbara Gallucci

Lucy's favorite work of art, by far, was Félix González-Torres's Untitled (Chemo) bead curtain. She loved to touch the sparkly beads and made little squeals of delight as she played with them.

These three photos above were taken with J's film camera. He was excited to shoot something with film again, which is something he hasn't done for a few years.

That night we got to meet up with J's cousin Chandler for dinner. It was fun to catch up with him for an hour or so. We're glad that we got to see family members from both sides of our family during our short trip back East.

On our last day, we tried once again to visit the USS Constitution before we left for the airport. We really enjoyed the interactive exhibits of the museum at the dock. That museum has some of the best interactive exhibits for little boys in the Boston area, I think. Sam especially liked learning about what it was like to be a sailor. And I appreciated a chance to better understand the (confusing) War of 1812.

Sam learning about cannons and projectiles that were used on the ship during times of war.

I don't know when we'll go back to Boston again. I was a little bit disappointed that we weren't able to get out to Salem. I remember visiting the House of Seven Gables when I was about fourteen (on a US History trip with my school), and that site was the highlight of my whole trip back then. I even bought a necklace with a pendant in the shape of the house, which I remember wearing for some time after I came home. I would be curious to see if that same place still resonated with me today in the same way, but I'll just have to go back another time to find out!