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After NerdCon, we stayed in Boston for a couple of extra days, and saw the sites. This mostly involved walking the excellent Freedom Trail:
This is the 'new' Massachusetts State House, which its famous golden dome, the gold of which was originally taken from the South in the Civil War (so the building isn't that new...):
This is a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw, who took command of the first all-black military unit in the US Civil War. The memorial is unusual because it shows him with his men, rather than it just being a statue of him on his horse.
This is the Boston Democratic donkey, so placed in front of the town hall because Massachusetts habitually votes Democrat.
And here we have the 'old' Massachusetts State House, which displays the British symbology of lion and unicorn, which is why it was replaced by the new building.
We heard a great deal about Paul Revere on the tour, and all the many things he's remembered for doing, a lot of which he actually didn't. But he still gets a quite impressive statue:
The guided tour section of the trail only took us so far, so we continued on to cover the rest of it on our own. This was very easy, because it's actually embedded in the street so you always know where to go:
On our second free day in Boston, we walked to Harvard, over a bridge where the distance is measured in Smoots. This is the height of a particular MIT student from some time ago, but the new students each year have to repaint the markings, so they will always stay fresh.
This is Memorial Hall on the Harvard campus, which contains a dining hall and an auditorium for important speakers:
This is the famous statue of John Harvard, which isn't actually of him at all, because no records of what he looked like survived by the time it was built:
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at MIT to complete our university tour:
Overall, our time in Boston was very educational and also fun.
This is the 'new' Massachusetts State House, which its famous golden dome, the gold of which was originally taken from the South in the Civil War (so the building isn't that new...):
This is a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw, who took command of the first all-black military unit in the US Civil War. The memorial is unusual because it shows him with his men, rather than it just being a statue of him on his horse.
This is the Boston Democratic donkey, so placed in front of the town hall because Massachusetts habitually votes Democrat.
And here we have the 'old' Massachusetts State House, which displays the British symbology of lion and unicorn, which is why it was replaced by the new building.
We heard a great deal about Paul Revere on the tour, and all the many things he's remembered for doing, a lot of which he actually didn't. But he still gets a quite impressive statue:
The guided tour section of the trail only took us so far, so we continued on to cover the rest of it on our own. This was very easy, because it's actually embedded in the street so you always know where to go:
On our second free day in Boston, we walked to Harvard, over a bridge where the distance is measured in Smoots. This is the height of a particular MIT student from some time ago, but the new students each year have to repaint the markings, so they will always stay fresh.
This is Memorial Hall on the Harvard campus, which contains a dining hall and an auditorium for important speakers:
This is the famous statue of John Harvard, which isn't actually of him at all, because no records of what he looked like survived by the time it was built:
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at MIT to complete our university tour:
Overall, our time in Boston was very educational and also fun.
