For The Love of Travel

 

A sleep in and relatively late start as tourists this morning.  First on the list….the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She was a woman of vision – art collector, philanthropist, and one of the foremost female patrons of the arts. Had a zest for life, an energetic intellectual curiosity and a love of travel. She was a friend of noted artists and writers of the day, including John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler and Henry James. Gardner created much fodder for the gossip tabloids of the day with her reputation for stylish tastes and unconventional behavior. Her surprising appearance at a 1912 concert (at what was then a very formal Boston Symphony Orchestra) wearing a white headband emblazoned with “Oh, you Red Sox” was reported at the time to have “almost caused a panic”, and remains still in Boston one of the most talked about of her eccentricities. Passionate about Renaissance and Venetian art as well as horticulture, her museum houses her significant collection of European,  Asian and American art from paintings and sculpture to tapestries and decorative arts. In 1990,thirteen of the museum’s works were stolen; the high-profile crime remains unsolved and the artwork’s location is still unknown. The courtyard; Spanish cloister; tapestry, gothic and long rooms were my favourite spaces.

Then, I decided to see city views from the Prudential Tower, aka colloquially, The Pru, a skyscraper 228 m tall, with 52 floors. The Skywalk Observatory on the 50th is currently the highest observation deck in New England open to the public. Gorgeous views of the crowds watching the Red Sox and NY Yankees baseball match at Fenway Park (I could have been there had I been prepared to pay $300 for a seat!!). Also of a yacht race on the Charles River, pink sails! And palatial buildings along Commonwealth, Malborough and Beacon Sts!!

Got a ticket for the 5pm Sunday performance of the Blue Man Group, that combines music, technology and comedy to create a form of entertainment that defies categorisation. They are percussion proficient on drums as well as PVC pipes! And they have have great comedic timing in other sketches. Unpredictable and funny! I was so glad I was able to see a performance after the cancelled Melb concert!

 

 

 

 

David, Tony and I made an early start for Plimoth Plantation, a living museum that shows the original settlement of the Plymouth Colony established in the 17th century by English colonists, some of whom later became known as Pilgrims. They were among the first people who immigrated to America to avoid religious persecution and to seek religious separation from the Church of England.

In the 1627 English Village section of the museum, ‘interpreters’ have been trained to speak, act and dress appropriately for the period and they interact with their ‘strange visitors’ (i.e. the modern general public) in the first person, answering questions, discussing their lives and viewpoints and participating in tasks such as cooking, planting, blacksmithing and animal husbandry. There is also a Wampanoag Homesite, where the staff are native people, dressed in historically accurate clothing, mostly made of deerskin. They speak from a modern perspective about Wampanoag history, culture and how life was lived.
Next a visit to see a replica of the Mayflower, with its solid oak timbers, tarred hemp rigging, horn lanterns and hand-colored maps, carefully re-created to give you a sense of what the original 17th-century vessel was like. Really well done all round!

Later, took the back road route 6a (old King’s Highway) down the Cape, more picturesque villages, art galleries. A late return to Boston.

Gorgeous 26C day to enjoy the Freedom Trail, a 4 km walk that takes you past 16 significant landmarks, each of which played major roles in the years leading to the American Revolution and the early years of the United States. Among them are the home of Paul Revere, where you get a good sense of how people lived in 1770s (in a word, closely; the house is really small). The Old North Church, has those two famous lanterns that warned Paul Revere the British were coming by sea in 1775, essentially igniting the American Revolution. The State House was built by Charles Bullfinch as the new center of state governance.

Delicious prawn salad with orange vinegrette for lunch @ Beacon Hill Hotel and Bistro. In the afternoon, the grounds of Harvard….where 20,000 students study and play. What a beautiful campus and perfect walking weather! We decided against taking a (Hahvahd) tour and just strolled through ourselves.

Mare Oyster Bar in the North End district for dinner…shared oysters for the first course and then various fish for the main….mine was the pan roasted halibut with corn and clam chowder, saffron and grilled andouille sausage….YUMM on all fronts.