Boston in the sun!

Arrived in Boston from MV – trip back was great and the La Cappella (little Chapel)

Apartments are brilliant and right in the heart of Little Italy and the atmosphere is really buzzing. It helps that the sun is out unlike the day we arrived in the US.

Weather was very hot and humid for the whole stay but managed to make the most of my shorts.

My Sea Bass and Mary's Ossobuco

 As you can imagine, the food has been pretty much Italian flavoured. The quality has been a bit up and down but we did have our second best meal here at a small Italian Bistro that opened on to the street. I had Chilean Sea Bass served on saffron risotto and topped with parsnip crisps with a side of asparagus which was so fresh and cooked to glistening perfection – the bottle of Chardonnay helped it down and maybe coloured my assessment  somewhat but what ever! Mary had Ossobuco served on pappardelle pasta, enough said.

The other thing is the coffee and pastry shops actually serve coffee that you can taste. We found this one – Modern Pastry – the fonts are great and would have made a great T shirt or cap but the only memorabilia they had was a ruddy mug.

Modern Pastry

Modern Pastry 

Clare and Kim - you would have loved the cakes and pastries.

Just around the corner from where we stayed

We spent a day following the freedom Trail which is basically four miles of backslapping on how they kicked the ‘brits’ out of America.  Well presented though fortunately at the 2/3 rds point we passed Modern Pastry so we called it a day! It seems to me that they swopped the Brits for Italians probably because they had better food and coffee shops.

Typical side street in the North End 

We also took a trip to Harvard on the 'T' (Boston's tube system). The students have just started back for the new term so it was quite busy. It was founded in 1638 by its main benefactor John Hartford. We had lunch in Harvard Yard; this became the standard by which most American institutions of higher learning modelled their campuses. It was all a bit 'Dead Poets Society' with students huddled in groups discussing who knows what!

Harvard Yard

Harvard Yard

Our next stage is travelling up north to Maine - we are picking a car up from Boston Airport and driving north to Maine, first stop Camden and then on to Bar Harbor.