Vacation in Boston (MA) - highlight being "Whale Watching"

 

Reaching there from Harrisburg (Pennsylvania):

We drove from Harrisburg (PA) to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (Baltimore) and took a flight to Boston. The drive to the Baltimore airport took about one and half hour drive.

Vacation Dates:

27th July 2007 - 29th July 2007

This was one of most memorable trips of mine. I hadn't seen whales and here we decided to go to Boston for a whale watching trip. Since summer is the best time, we planned this trip in the month of July. Once we arrived at the Boston airport we took the bus to the metro station and from there took a train and then again a bus to reach our hotel in Point Shirley. We had made our reservations in the Suburban Extended Stay Hotel.

One of the first places we visited after landing in Boston was the Quincy Market for lunch. The metro and the bus service is pretty convenient to travel around in Boston. I simply took a fancy for the Quincy market place. Its such a fun place with plethora of eating places, plenty of public performances around the market place and a long aisle of knick-knack shops. You have so many options for food - Mexican, American, Indian, Chinese, all kinds of seafood, amazing dessert & ice-creams parlor and coffee shops. Our menu for lunch was Paradise Chicken with Siam Noodles and Chocolate Pastry. Probably fried rice would have been a better choice with chicken.

Oh when you are at the Quincy Market, you got to go to the Godiva Chocolatier which is just outside the marketplace. It has some of the most yummy shakes, my favorite being the 'Chocolate Decadence'. Umm I still remember the taste.

Summer time is play time and that is when you get to see several public performances. We saw a juggling act and a dance performance.

 

We also happen to go to the Museum of Science in Boston. The museum offers film presentation in 3D and they have one of the best state-of-the-art digital projection system. While at the museum we happened to catch the screening of "The World of Sharks". The 3D dome theatre is definitely amazing. the museum has some very interesting sections like the Mathematics section. With the setting sun we headed to my favorite place - yes the Quincy Market for dinner. This time we tried the Teriyaki chicken and a Burrito (yes we had a combo of Chinese and Mexican dishes) and had ice cream for dessert. The market place was abuzz with people all around and it was bright with all the lights on. We were there on time for the light and sound laser show that is held in the night around 8:30pm. The show wasn't that great, nothing very special.

Next morning we headed to the Long Wharf at the Boston harbor area as we were scheduled to take the whale watching cruise. It was drizzling then. In the harbor area is another attraction - The New England Aquarium. We already had our cruise tickets booked online from the Boston Harbor Cruises so just had to collect them from their office. Because of some problems with the ship we were to take the 10:30am cruise so we had plenty of time on hand and so we went for a morning walk around the harbor area. The drizzling had stopped by then. The site of boats and ships anchored at the Wharf area against the early morning (at 8:00am) sky looked peaceful with no one around. We walked through a small park nearby, had our breakfast at Quincy Market and began walking back to the harbor.

Soon we were aboard the cruise sailing into the ocean in search of the whales. Once we were at the whale spotting zone, the cruise officials gave us some rightful information about the whales. Just between one such announcements we were alerted about whale activity at a far away distance. This was just the beginning. Within minutes we saw another colossus mass emerging from the blue waters and disappearing in seconds. Another majestic sight was the mammal taking a dip into the water with its tail fin visible in full sight. Most of them were the Humpback whales with a few Minke whales too. The only disappointment being that we didn't get to see the whale in it's entirety. Its just a matter of luck. But we did capture some nice videos of the whales.

Video of two of the whales we spotted.

The cruise was three hour long. By the time we came back it was lunch time. Boston is also known for its Italian Market at North End. We decided to go there for lunch and since its quite near from the harbor, we decided to walk. This market has all kinds of Italian eateries on both sides of the road. We had Italian Pizza for lunch and headed to an Italian bakery shop for some cheesecake. That is when it started to rain. Within moments it was pouring as hell. We waited for the rain to stop and then headed back. While on our way back we walked through the Haymarket food bazaar. It is like a farmer's market where people get their fresh produce and sell. But what we read on the Internet was that the fruits and veggies sold aren't that good. They sell it cheap, real cheap but  half of it is not good for use. We had read about the huge Boston Public Library on the Internet so thought of going there. But we were late as the library had already closed. We roamed around in the vicinity. There is this good looking building - The John Hancock Tower and the Trinity Church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A visit to Boston would be incomplete without a stroll in the Boston Public Garden hence next we headed to towards the garden. The garden is huge with a lake inside which has colorful swan shaped boats. The garden is lined with beds of colorful flowers and also has several works of public art. As you move closer to the lake you see flock of swans all around. They sometimes tend to follow you and give you ample opportunities to capture them with your camera. With the tour of the garden the day came to an end and we headed for a nearby Chinese Takeout for dinner. We had some spicy Chicken curry.

Next day we had some time before heading back home so we planned to go to the nearby beach called the Winthrop Beach. This beach wasn't worth mentioning. We came back and packed our bags. The hotel van dropped us at the metro station. We took the freedom trail around the State Station. It was ok, I wouldn't say great. We had our lunch at Quincy - a Lobster Roll and Quesadilla. Then we headed to the airport. This day was one of the longest day of my life. After waiting for an hour we came to know that the flight was delayed. There were some thunderstorms and heavy rain in the Baltimore and Philadelphia areas which caused delays in the flights. We had some Chinese food for lunch at the airport and waited for some information regarding our flight. Thank God, I had my Harry Potter with me. Our flight was originally scheduled to depart at 2pm in the afternoon but we finally took off at 7:30pm. A long ordeal came to an end. We then drove, back to Harrisburg, in the rain and reached home around 12pm.