Boston & New England in the Fall
Boston is known for being a bit rebellious and if you’re interested in history, most people walk the two and a half miles of the Freedom Trails, visit the Boston Tea Party ships and museum and maybe visit the JFK library and museum as this city is where the 35th US president was born and raised.
Faneuil Marketplace consists of four historic buildings dating back to the 1800s, including Quincy Market and is easily found along the Freedom Trail. It's Boston's answer to Covent Garden and offers lots of outdoor stree entertainment in the summer months. Out of the 50 or so places to eat and drink in Faneuil Marketplace, nearly 40 can be found in Quincy Market's Colonnade, the largest Food Hall in New England and it's an excellent place for a lobster roll! Faneuil Hall is also where the Boston Tea Party rebellion against British Taxation began. The Marketplace is in the heart of the city and the historic Haymarket (Boston's famous open air market open Fridays and Saturdays), the new Boston Public Market, the haunting Boston Holocaust Memorial are also nearby.
Boston is also the setting for many films such as Good Will Hunting, The Departed, Mystic River and The Boondock Saints. It also hosted the long running comedy series ‘Cheers’ and the bar set can still be visited for a beer or two. We loved Boston Common which is the oldest public park in the US dating back to 1634 and the nearby public botanical gardens, as well as the more eclectic Beacon Hill area full of interesting shops and eateries and their famous 'brownstone' houses. If you’re sports fans this is also the home of the Red Sox, the Bruins & the Patriots among others and virtually every bar will be showing a selection of games most nights.
New England is an area covering Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. It has cities, mountains, rolling hills and the beaches and seaside towns of the Atlantic coastline. North Conway is also the home of a great selection of steam locomotives and is a charming place to stay and take a peek at the autumn foliage without driving.
If you want to see the fall at its best, you need to move around and book in advance as most of the hotels and Inns proudly displayed their ‘no vacancies’ signs at the roadside. We also chose to search out some of the covered bridges, lighthouses and the ‘pumpkin people’ of Jackson as we felt we needed a purpose for driving other than just looking at the spectacular foliage. This self-guided tour of more than 80 different listed locations hosting official Pumpkin People displays didn't disappoint. It's been running now for over 30 years and the public get to vote for their favourites. The festival lasts for the month of October so we tried our best in the short time we were there and probably found around 25.
We did the drive up Mount Washington when we saw the weather was going to be good. The view was spectacular and the wind ice was a surprise as it was still -2’ at the summit! Luckily the wind was only gusting around 10mph and nowhere near the 231mph wind speed record it’s known for! When we got back down there was an 8 mile queue to make the drive as the weather was perfect and one of the last weekends before the road was due to close for the winter.