Recap of Our Trip to Boston!

Traveling has always been a huge part of my life, and I love to plan weekend getaways or roadtrips whenever I get a chance! Luckily, Alex loves traveling too, so life is always filled with adventure!! We recently went to Boston, Massachusetts, to ring in the New Year. We researched the “must-see” Boston sites before we went, but we also meandered down the streets and popped into a ton of quaint cafes and coffee shops! These are our top recommendations of what to do and where to eat in Boston. Check out #katistravels on Instagram for more travel photos!

Things to Do:

1/9 Walk around the city

We love using Yelp to pick out our top places to eat, but I always have to remind myself to do what I like to call “shop with my eyes,” too. Basically what I mean is that there are SO many great places to see and things to do that can’t be found on Yelp or other sites. Bundle up, walk around the city, and get lost for a bit! (: The temperature on our trip ranged from 20-40 degrees without much sunshine, so make sure to wear layers and bring a good pair of gloves!

 

2/9 freedom trail

This is the ONE thing you need to do if you are only in Boston for a short while. The Freedom Trail is a path you follow (pictured below on the bottom right) that takes you to historic sites such as the site of the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere’s house, etc. If you are like me and you listened in history class but need a little refresher, a walking tour is a great idea. Our tour was 90 minutes and led by a costumed tour guide. Needless to say, it was entertaining, and we enjoyed hearing stories and little-known facts from her along the way. The trail is a total of 2.5 miles long, but the tour takes you about a mile. You can buy tickets HERE.

3/9 visit cambridge

I’ve always heard that Harvard has a beautiful campus, so I wanted to see for myself! We spent a half-day in Cambridge walking around Harvard’s campus and coffee-shop hopping. We had a mini photoshoot here because we had time to kill before we Ubered back to Boston to get ready for NYE.

4/9 Boston Public Library

On a VERY cold and rainy day, we popped into the Boston Public Library to take a look around. Everything is grand and ornate which is the complete opposite of the libraries I’m used to. (Cough cough- A&M). The library has a free exhibition that rotates throughout the year, and we were lucky enough to be there when it was “Shakespeare Unauthorized.” The exhibit was all about Shakespeare conspiracies, and it contained some of the oldest known Shakespeare artifacts. The exhibit will be there through June 2017, and I highly recommend it!

5/9 Quincy Market

To be honest, I had always heard about Quincy Market, but I had NO idea what it was. Historically, it was a prime marketplace, but now it is now essentially a giant food court. Haha! It’s a fun place to grab a snack and browse through stores. There are outdoor shops behind the market (like American Eagle, J Crew, etc.). We were in Boston over the holidays, so we saw the nightly Light Show in the courtyard. This is a great place to go at nighttime because there are always a ton of people around!

 

6/9 Boston Common

Boston Common is America’s oldest park. It’s also home to the Boston Visitors Center where we booked our walking tour of the Freedom Trail. In the winter, the park has outdoor ice skating and festive lights hung on all of the trees. In the summertime, I imagine it would be a great place to have a picnic!

Things To Do Cont’d: Off the Beaten Path

7/9 Bleacher Bar

Fenway Park is iconic to Boston! I’m not a huge baseball fan, but I think Fenway Park is neat since it is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball! They offer tours year round, but we opted to skip out on that. We would have gone to a game if it was baseball season! We figured the next best thing to a tour would be to visit the sports bar that is underneath the stadium. You can sneak a peek of the baseball field from inside the Bleacher Bar.

8/9 Boston Pops Swing Orchestra at Symphony Hall

This was definitely our favorite part of the trip (and our biggest splurge!!). We bought tickets to see the Boston Pops Swing Orchestra at Symphony Hall on New Year’s Eve. It’s the first time we have ever done something “fancy” for NYE, and we loved it! (Be on the lookout for my blog post on Wednesday that talks more about this!) If you buy tickets in the orchestra section (ground floor), you can enjoy table service and utilize the dancefloor! Alex and I were by far the youngest people there, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying every second- especially the NYE countdown and balloon drop! Fun fact: one of the guest vocalists for the evening was Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. who won season 6 of America’s Got Talent!

9/9 Improv Show

Improv is definitely not specific to Boston, but it’s something to do after dinner once everything starts shutting down! We went to a 10 PM show at Improv Asylum which is conveniently located in Little Italy. Dinner and a show, anyone?!  We also found out that if you go to the 10 PM show, they let you stay for the midnight show for free! Tip: we actually saved a few dollars buying the “obstructed view” tickets because that is all they had left. We didn’t have any issues seeing the stage since it’s a pretty small theatre, so that’s one way to snag less expensive tickets!

Places to Eat:

Okay- I have to preface this section of the blog post by saying that Alex and I love food. But most of all, we love coffee shops! No matter where we are in the world, we are always seeking out cozy coffee shops. We had a lot of downtime in Boston between site-seeing and meals, so we spent several hours hanging out in coffee shops. (This list doesn’t include all of the places we stopped at- just our favorites!) Like I mentioned earlier, Yelp will be your best friend. We try to only go to places that have over 4 stars on Yelp or places that were recommended to us by locals.

1/9 Cornish Pasty Co.

When Alex told me he wanted to go to Cornish Pasty Co., I thought he said PASTRY shop. I honestly had no idea what a pasty was until we got there- haha! This ended up being our favorite restaurant of the trip because the food was so unique! The atmosphere is similar to a pub, and there were times when the music was too loud, so it’s great for a casual lunch but not a dinner date!

2/9 Courtyard Restaurant

Ahh, there are few things that I think are as darling as afternoon tea!! When I was researching the hours of the Boston Public Library, I came across the Courtyard Restaurant. It’s a tiny cafe inside of the library that serves afternoon tea. You’ll need to call a couple weeks in advance to make a reservation. I didn’t know this, so we were on the wait list until the morning of. They were serving a special winter menu with holiday pastries, and it was the cutest thing ever! We ate EVERYTHING, so I count this as an actual meal.

3/9 Wired Puppy

The Wired Puppy is a great grab-and-go coffee place. Seating is limited, but the inside is warm and cozy. We went out of our way to stop here just because we thought the name was hilarious!

4/9 Modern Pastry

Mmm, cannolis! We were told by a local that tourists go to Mike’s Pastry and locals go to Modern Pastry, so we took their advice. There’s the option to build your own cannoli, so we chose our shells, filling, etc. This is also located in Little Italy right across from the improv theatre.

5/9 Luke’s Lobster

I’ll admit, I wasn’t super excited to try a cold lobster roll. Something about it didn’t seem appealing to me, but Alex wanted to try Luke’s Lobster. They ended up having great lobster rolls and clam chowder. We decided this restaurant had the friendliest staff, so I would definitely recommend it for your lobster fix!

6/9 Crema Cafe in Cambridge

We went to Cambridge not knowing what to expect, so we ended up spending time in this cute little coffee shop called Crema Cafe. It was super crowded, so we are lucky we found a spot. It’s cozy with a loft area and a huge pastry selection. We like that it had a “college-town feel” seeing as we were on our way to Harvard’s campus!

7/9 Caffe Nero

Caffe Nero was our favorite coffee shop of the trip! It’s nestled in a quiet, residential part of South End, and its super cozy! We hung out here for a couple hours so we could escape the cold. They had booth seating and great coffee, so it was easy to stay a while. This is a franchise in Boston, but we loved it nonetheless.

8/9 Bova’s

Bova’s is another great place to order cannolis! The only downside is that it’s a tiny little place with no seating, so you’ll have to take your cannoli on the go! We came here late at night because it is open 24-7, but we would go back in the daytime next time. (Easy to find an Uber!) We rated this our favorite cannoli place on the trip! It helps that they had a cappuccino flavor! The picture on the bottom left is unrelated to the cannolis, but I included it just for fun.

 

9/9 Giacamo’s Ristorante

Giacamo’s Ristorante definitely has character! It’s a tiny restaurant with less than 20 tables located in Little Italy. There was a line out the door all night, so we figured it must be good! There are only 2-3 waitresses, but everything was fast-paced and efficient. In our experience, the portions were huge, and everything was tasty! Tip: most restaurants in this area are cash only!

 

our final thoughts

Kati: Overall, we had a great time in Boston! We stayed for 4 nights, but we could have fit everything in in 3 nights. If I could do it again, I would go closer to the fall to have longer daylight hours. There were a lot of parks we would have liked to visit if we had more time and if it wasn’t as cold! I would recommend Boston to anyone who is interested in history and looking for a slower paced trip filled with lobster rolls, clam chowder, and cannolis! My favorite things were afternoon tea (so cute!!), the Boston Symphony, and the Freedom Trail!

Alex: Boston was a pleasant change of pace because we could leisurely walk around the city, and we felt comfortable strolling around with no particular destination in mind. I really enjoyed the historic architecture and the museum exhibit inside the library. One of my favorite parts of the trip was having to suddenly escape from the cold and snow by jumping into the first restaurant or coffee shop that we saw. I also enjoyed all of the shell fish such as lobster, mussels, and clams, that I wouldn’t normally order in Houston. I would recommend a trip to Boston to anyone who likes history and good food in a laid-back atmosphere.