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Final Full Day in Boston (9/24/25)

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So here we are — our last full day. What to do …?? Well, first of all, COFFEE!

We went to the same place as yesterday, The Thinking Cup. Heh … oh, now I get it! Took me a while. This time we both opted for lox and bagels with out typical coffees, espresso macchiato for Dan and cappuccino for me. All was quite yummy. Because it had started to sprinkle nearly everyone was eating inside, so the noise was a bit much for my ears — especially one woman sitting very nearby. She had the type of voice that just penetrates, if you know what I mean. (If you don’t maybe you should call me and I’ll demonstrate. Or not.)

We decided we’d head toward two museums, so we walked that direction. We didn’t realize we would be walking by Berklee College of Music until we were at the corner and I spotted it. (And yes, I definitely didn’t do a lot of research before heading to Boston!)

The walk was pleasant. I had no idea what direction we were talking (it was cloudy so I couldn’t see where the sun was), but our map guided us. Mostly.

First up was the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, at a sort of okay price of $20 per senior. What a hodgepodge of things she collected. It truly ran the gamut. And her “palace” also ran the gamut, as a combo of Moorish and sort of what looked like craftsman perhaps, among other things. It rather fit her crazy collection, to be honest.

Partway through we had our lunches at museum prices. So it goes! We are supporting the arts, I suppose.

Then upstairs we went. Floors two and three with a lot more hodge-podge.

And it’s always good to get advice when in the bathroom, yes?

When we got out of the museum we had to use our umbrellas for the first time. But hooray … I could then say I’d used everything I’d brought aside from one pair of socks and a pair of tights. Not bad!

We made our way (a less than five minute walk) to the MFABoston (Museum of Fine Arts Boston in case you don’t want to puzzle over what I typed first). By the time we arrived it was already 3:30 and it closed at 5:00. I have a suggestion for museums: lower your price if someone can only be there for an hour and a half! Not only is that not a thing, but they don’t have senior prices. So $27 per person it was. (And they are going up to $30 soon).

I did enjoy the museum. First up was a search for the photography exhibit. Hmm. Where was it?! Oh. It’s just a small, five photo or so, thing in a room one might pass through to get elsewhere. And it wasn’t all that exciting.

Then off to their special exhibit to check that out. Rachel Ruysch painted incredible works of flowers and bugs. (A sign outside the room warned people that there may be disturbing things due to the small animal specimens — various insects pinned in collection boxes and various small critters in jars. Those don’t bother me, but they also don’t really matter to me.) I’d seen some of her work before — I believe it was in Berlin. The exhibit of paintings (by not only the star of the show but her teacher and her younger sister) were great, but after seeing a number of them I’d seen enough and didn’t think I needed to see even more. It’s very difficult to get decent photographs due to the lighting. Oh well.

So we headed upstairs to see a variety works. We wandered and enjoyed a lot of wonderful work (Monet, Van Gogh, Millet, and many more but I’m lazy and don’t want to keep typing names!) until someone came by to tell us it was time to be leaving.

It was still sprinkling outside (thankfully it hadn’t been sprinkling inside … that would be a problem!) and Dan decided to grab a Lyft. But we didn’t grab it quickly enough: it appeared that most people had opted for the same thing and we were the last to get a car, which took 25 minutes to arrive. (Actually, he was assigned one car and shortly after that one must have canceled, he was assigned another and ditto there, so we were getting car #3.) All for a one mile drive to our hotel, except in a car it’s more than a mile of course.

Traffic in Boston isn’t great. I don’t think I’d ever want to drive here. Our driver said it’s always this way. So no thanks!

We went back to our hotel and first went to the “kitchen” to see if they had utensils since we have some chocolate cake in the fridge. And yes, they did! Then I got myself a cup of coffee because, well, it’s free at the hotel and I have a difficult time resisting free things. It was decent for hotel coffee, so I brought it up to our room where I typed much of this blog entry and we relaxed for a while.

Dinner. Ahhhh, dinner! We puzzle over this nearly every day. We say we are going to do simpler things so frequently. We’ll keep it cheaper. But, well, it was our last night, and we wanted seafood but we didn’t want to go very far. The place the hotel had recommended was more than we wanted to spend and didn’t have any openings until 8:30. I found a place (Banks Seafood and Steak) that looked less expensive and had a 7:00 opening. Plus it was only a six minute walk. Sort of. We took the Apple Maps directions and they were a bit silly and six turned in to about twelve. But we arrived, eventually got seated, and looked at the menus. Truth is, it was about as expensive as the hotel recommended spot. But I justified it all by saying it was our last night and very likely our last visit (first and last, really) to Boston. So there you go. The meal was absolutely delicious and the service was excellent. (I’m always happy when the servers don’t say, “take your fork and knife” if they are removing the appetizer plate, but instead clear it all and bring clean utensils. Call me crazy, but I prefer good service like that. (Hm. I guess I should do that at home, eh?!)

We spent a good long time at the restaurant, and then walked back to our hotel, umbrellas opened due to the sprinkles we felt. The walk back was shorter — our route was much smarter than Apple’s!

And here we are. The final night. We checked in for our flight earlier today, and tomorrow will most likely be a “get coffee, get back to the hotel and pack” sort of day.

I really like Boston. It’s was impressed by the friendly people, the cleanliness of the city, and the history is just so amazing. It makes history more real when one is in the places where things actually happened! I could write more — especially about the mess our country is in now do to the person who is ruling over us, but I’ll try to keep my mouth shut (and my typing fingers still). For now.

Tuesday in Boston (9/23/25)

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We had a typical lazy start to the day. I get rather antsy, but Dan has things he wants and probably needs to do on his iPad (photo things, maybe?) so I busy myself by playing a few games (Wordl, Sudoku, along with a few others) just to kill time) and starting today’s blog.

The weather outside looks lovely, despite the rain forecasts we’d seen earlier, and that forecast has, thankfully, changed. We can deal with rain, of course, but if we don’t have to were are just fine with that!

So here I am, at 9:12AM, dressed, things put away, and ready to go. Now I wait …

At 10:00 we did make our way to the very slow elevator. Of course the elevator that looks to be the one we should be using is out of order. I seem to recall a review criticized that which makes me think it will never be repaired. But what I assume might be the service elevator works: it’s just extremely slow.

We went to a different — and much better — place for coffee and food: Dan had a rather small muffin, and I had yogurt and fruit. I have missed our yogurt and while what I got was fine, our home made yogurt is much better and I look forward to making it when we get home!

We decided we should do the remainder of the Freedom Trail, which meant heading again past the park.

We continued to walk, and we passed a restaurant whose signs just crack me up. I thought they should at least have on item that is second best or maybe even third. But nope!


Then it was over the bridge.

And then we were in Charlestown.

With a short walk we made our way to the Bunker Hill Monument.

We could have taken the 429 stairs up to the top, but we both agreed we weren’t up for that, so we enjoyed the view from below. It’s been so interesting reading about the Revolutionary war: it’s been eons since I learned about it and I never did pay much attention to history back then.

From Bunker Hill we went to the USS Constitution. Sadly we couldn’t board the boat as it is being worked on. We’d rather counted on spending a good amount of time on that. Another more modern ship was there as well but it, too, was closed. So much for that! But we walked around and I took some record shots so I could put them up here.

Then it was lunch time. We had said it was to be a two meal day, but so much for that! I ordered a cup of corn and clam chowder so that was fairly small. Dan ordered a club sandwich and that was huge so I was a very helpful wife and ate a fourth of it.

We could have walked back over the bridge but instead we opted for taking a ferry. It took us a bit of time, along with some help from another ferry rider, to figure out how to buy tickets on my phone, and for some reason I couldn’t find the senior price there so we ended up paying full price, but I suppose we can afford the slightly over $7 it cost us.

Then it was a random ramble. We really had nothing more planned until dinner. I did tell Dan I think we could have done one less day here as we are running out of things we want to do. Maybe tomorrow we’ll investigate some museums, though.

After growing weary of walking we stopped in at a beer garden and had a beer. Mostly it was just to kill time, to be honest.

Getting near 5:00 we walked past a the City Hall (I think!).

And then over to La Famiglia Giorgio for dinner. I’m glad we went so early because by the time we left people were waiting to get in. The food was good, but oh my do they fill the plate. My dish could easily have fed a family of four and I think Dan’s could have as well. I could barely put a dent in the dish, and we both asked to have things boxed up.

We had originally thought we’d get a car home, having walked about eight miles so far, but with the food we decided we’d walk and hand the (very heavy) bag to someone who looked like they needed it. Sure enough, while on our walk, a couple who appeared to be living on the streets were sitting on the sidewalk and Dan asked if they were hungry and handed the bag to them. I do hope they enjoyed the feast.

It was a lovely evening walk!

We reached our hotel and I checked my watch: 10.18 miles today. Not bad! Of course, as I reminded Dan, if we were ever to do the Camino de Santiago we’d have about seven miles to go on some days. Hm. Can we really manage that walk? I wonder!

Oh, and about shoes: I am wearing some All Birds which I really do like, but clearly my Altra shoes are better for lengthy walks when my feet tend to swell a bit. I think I will save the All Birds for hanging out in and shorter than six mile neighborhood walks. I realize that is incredibly exciting information you couldn’t live without!

Tomorrow might be rainy. But then today was originally going to be rainy and it was a lovely, albeit somewhat humid, day. We shall see!

Hello Boston! (9/21/25)

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After packing Dan, Carolyn, and I drove to the coffee shop we’d been at on our first morning in Bennington. There we met up with Jameson and Meghan, and enjoyed muffins, coffee or tea, and conversation. I was sorry to miss out on seeing Brandon and Lia once more, but they were staying further away and couldn’t make it down.

We said our goodbyes and then got back into the rental car (since when did a Toyota Corolla go from being a compact to a midsize car?) and made our way to the Boston airport. We had chosen no toll roads so toward the end of the drive it was pretty crazy. Prior to that the drive was a wee bit colorful at times (we are thinking the color will arrive early this year but perhaps not be as stunning as some years), but really rather boring. Still, since our drive to Bennington was in the dark I enjoyed seeing the route we took albeit in the opposite direction.

We dropped Carolyn off at the terminal, filled the car with gas, returned it, and grabbed (not literally) a Lyft. I simply wasn’t up for figuring out public transportation by then. Our driver was one of those aggressive sorts who manages to squeeze in front of cars even if they don’t want to let him in. He wasn’t so kind to the cars that tried to do the same to him. Go figure!

Our hotel is in a great section of Boston: we are staying at the Copley Square Hotel. When I was planning this trip I learned that Boston is just horrifically expensive. But so it goes — it’s our first trip here and who knows, it may very well be the one and only trip, so we just decided to deal with the cost. We were told the first elevator — one that looked to me like it was for guests — was out of order. The other (service elevator perhaps?) was what we were to use. My goodness it was slow!

Getting to our room … it looks just fine. The bathroom door, however, really need work! We had to pull it VERY hard to get the door to shut!

Our room and the view from the room:

We sat in our room for a bit (thankfully it was ready well before the 3:00 check in time) and relaxed with our iPads in hand. Then it was time to start exploring!

We are just a few short blocks away from the popular Newbury street: it’s full of brownstones most of which are now stores in the lower floors. Many of the clothing stores seemed to be high end and/or boutique places. For Sunday they close off a lot of the street, although cross traffic still is allowed through. Booths are set up as well — people selling a variety of things. The street was quite full of people, many of whom looked like they were in their twenties so Dan and I fit right in.


When we had first arrived at Newbury I saw people at the corner having what looked like light snacks and drinks, so I mentioned to Dan that that looked tempting. Sure enough, we did wind up there after a bit of walking. We ordered the mezze platter for two, I had a Last Word cocktail and Dan, being the good boy that he is, had a Nanegroni (an alcohol free drink). The mezze plate turned out to be more food than we had expected and was delicious.

We had a nice chat with our server. She had asked where we were from and we told her, saying it was our first time in Boston. She told us she’d been here for three years, and came from Uraguay, a place I confess I’m totally clueless about. She was very kind, and then surprised us with this dessert as a sort of “welcome to Boston” treat! How sweet (literally and figuratively!).


From there we did more walking, heading the other direction of Newbury. When it ended we turned right and walked to the Charles river.

Then it was time to head back. We went up (or is it down?) a different street and saw more beautiful buildings.

We both agreed we hardly needed to get dinner so we wound up back in our room We did munch on some chips we had from a little goody bag Sara and Ben had gifted people who stayed at the Vervana Hotel, and that was all we really needed. (Okay, we really didn’t even need those. But they were there, and we heard them calling our names.)

I then did a few puzzles (Yeah, I know, I do too many!), and read more of the Camino book I’ve started. We are really hoping to do that in the spring of 2027 (if not the fall of 2026) and I want to know what we are in for.

A Whole Lot of Walking & An Opera

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We started quite slowly today, which is probably a theme on this trip.

Our first goal was to make sure we knew how to reach Palais Garnier (easy!), and if the restaurant I’d made reservations for was what we wanted (no! — and why is a fast food place asking us to make reservations anyway?).

I’d been warned that the Palais Garnier had a horrible huge ad and false facade on the front … sure enough, it’s still there. Too bad.

Since that fast food restaurant spot wasn’t going to do it for us we walked back to the hotel street and checked out places there. The opera begins at 7:30, so those that opened at 6 or later just seemed too iffy, so we found something that will be open earlier and we’ll just hop on over there. I am guessing we’ll be early enough that it will be easy to get a table. I saw this tile work on the corner nearby … felt like we were back in Portugal!

After heading back to our hotel to put another layer on (the wind was making it colder than I expected), and checking the weather (no rain), we went back out. Our sort of flexible goal was to get to Notre Dame, so we walked in that direction.

We don’t walk fast. It’s more of a casual amble. And we look around constantly. It was a random walk, so if we saw something that caught our eye we’d go there.

Near the Louvre we looked for lunch. Up til then we’d only had coffee, so it was time. We ate tremendously healthy stuff. I can’t say it was fabulous, but it sufficed.

Eventually we wound up at the Christmas market by the Louvre. To me it was more of a carnival than a market: they did have food and drink, but we didn’t get anything. We did love the singing reindeer. That sort of made the visit to the market! Crazy thing is that I used to listen to a guy who did YouTube videos where he sang three or four parts and put it all together and this sounded just like him. I know he’s from France, and I know he’s fluent in English so maybe it actually is …?

And then out we went … and it was sprinkling. WHY do we trust the weather apps? (And why don’t we carry our umbrellas in any case?) Because of that we put a hold on Notre Dame: if the rain got worse we’d be seriously uncomfortable. So we wandered. A lot.

And of course we “discovered” things we’d never seen before! This place: Domaine national du Palais-Royal. We just sort of ended up there.

And roses … in December?!

Getting back to the hotel my watch said I’d walked over 7 miles. My feet said so too. With an early dinner plan I decided a little bit of rest would be good.

We went out to dinner at the place right across the street and had a very simple meal: I had onion soup and Dan had a salad.

Finishing that we went back to the hotel and dressed for the opera.

As is typical we were a bit confused on our directions: I have decided I will never understand this part of Paris! But we got to the opera … and what a place it is!



We had box seats. Not too shabby!

I really enjoyed The Rake’s Progress. The orchestra and singers were super. The great conductor was Susanna Mälkki, someone I really thought was fabulous at SFSymphony. This is our final outing for a performance on this trip. I’m so glad we got to attend so many.

So far no plans for tomorrow, but I suspect we will make our way over to Notre Dame. I’m sorry we can’t go inside, but I gave it my best shot: I checked any time I woke up in the night, and at other times of the day as well. They just never had any I could grab. Rats!

And Now Our Final Full Day

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The last day is always a bit of an interesting day. We do less most of the time, as I think our brains are busy thinking about the travel day and our bodies really let down because we know we are nearly done.

As is always the case, it was breakfast first, and then after getting ready, heading to the tube. It was Jubilee to Westminster this morning. We then walked over to Westminster Abbey: there were no (expensive) tours today since it’s Sunday, but there was Matins scheduled at 10:00 so we opted for that. Worship services are always free, and it was nice to worship on a Sunday in London! This time we were wiser than we were in York, got there early, and had lovely seats where we could see and hear better. It was all quite beautiful.

The formality of the service is, of course, not what I experience at home. I really miss a bit of formality so I enjoyed it. This was not a service with a sermon, but it was music, scripture, and prayer. I was moved.

No photography was allowed in the service, understandably, and it did make me realize we should someday pay the whopping amount they charge if we really want to see the entire building. I was ogling the markers for various famous musicians as we walked in and a guide came and clearly wanted us to move on.

On the way out people did pull out cameras, so I felt comfortable taking a few shots outside of the actual church.


From the church we ambled a bit, checking out some nearby spots.

After that we headed toward Trafalgar Square. When we were here the first time we met up at the Square with Greg and Jan and from there we walked to a nearby pub. Dan thought he could locate it and he did! All I remembered was that we got to go down two flights of stairs which I loved — it felt so private.

It hadn’t yet opened, so we continued our walk toward Trafalgar.

There was a huge area fenced off. Hm. And why might that be? Baseball. The Phillies & Mets are here to play, wouldn’t you know? So this was some sort of spot where they had a huge screen and I could hear someone talking and music playing. We weren’t interested in going in, so we continued to walk.

Eventually it was time to get back to “our” pub. It just opened, and the person opening it told us to go on up to the main floor. Ah well. We didn’t opt to ask if we could go down, being the shy retiring sort of folks we are. Today is Sunday so the menu was different … it’s roast time. Dan had chicken and I had some sort of plant-based nut roast. It was all quite tasty. (I think the roasted potatoes won the day, though!)



More time to walk, and we were on Fleet Street. You know what that means!

Okay … it doesn’t really mean “The Amicable Society of Lazy Ballerinas”. (I looked it up: it’s a wine bar.)

But this …

We headed to St. Paul’s.

I wasn’t interesting in paying £22.50 per senior to go in, nor was Dan, so we just wandered around it a bit and then went to the Millennium bridge, which took us toward our hotel. A quick climb up some stairs later and we were back.

On the Millennium Bridge.

Eventually it was time to head to Holy Trinity Church. Greg (one of my brothers, for those of you who don’t know) had mentioned that Gesualdo Six would be singing there and I was so glad he did!

The church is in Chelsea. Some restaurants were quite posh, and clearly the area is that way as well.


We found a more affordable place to dine, and then we headed around the corner to the church for the concert.

First a choir from Birmingham, Alabama sang, then Gesualdo Six joined them for one song, and then the Six sang an absolutely exquisite half. For both the choir and GSix I had to pull a tissue out. There is simply nothing like the human voice, and the music hit me in the way I love. If you ever have a chance to hear the Gesualdo Six I highly recommend that you do!


Finally it was another train “home” where I’m writing this and we will spend our last night. Our flight tomorrow doesn’t leave until 4:15 PM, but we will take our time packing, and head over to the airport which is a bit of a distance. But hey, the flight home is only three hours! We arrive at 7-something PM. Yep, I’m still funny as can be. Or not.

Some views from the Blackfriar’s Bridge: we crossed this bridge a number of times.

So this is it. End of vacation. Maybe I’ll post when we get home (if I have a brain left), and I’d like to post some thoughts on what I’d do differently next time. Having the Great Glen Way walk added to this trip did make it difficult to pack lightly, though. I’d love to see if there would be a way to do that despite doing a walk. (And honestly I think I’d see if these less expensive trekking poles we bought would make it through in carryon. If they took them away I’d just sigh and deal.)

Posting these blog entries has been cumbersome and I need to find a better way to upload photos, but that will wait for another day. For now it’s close to slumber time, and then let the packing begin!

Ciao!