Bawstan

After taking a day to recover from my exertions in New York and to prepare myself for the highlight of the whole trip Boston, I woke with the lark and had an early croissant and stepped off the ship girding my loins for another round of US immigration, lo and behold this amounted to one of Boston's finest saying " Welcome to Boston" followed by "have a nice day" then an encounter with a charming information lady giving out maps of Boston which the locals pronounce Bawstan. I asked apart from being a brilliant baseball player which was the best way of getting to Fenway Park Baseball Stadium, she said taxi's would charge mega bucks, she suggested a sightseeing trolley bus that stopped outside the Stadium plus also went around the rest of the city. I thanked her for her advice and hoped she had a nice day, I like to think her chuckle was in the irony of my words? I joined my "Old town trolley bus company" and the driver "Bear" who was to be our narrator, when he found out I was English he asked if I approved of what they have done with the country. I told him I would withhold judgement until the end of the trip, which gave us licence to have a bit of a snipe at one another during the tour, much to the amusement of the other passengers, in particular we kept crossing Marlborough St, which he insisted on pronouncing Marlboro St which I assured him was incorrect as I was born in Marlborough in Wiltshire after which it is named and that was the correct way to pronounce it by the end of the trip he very nearly had it right. On a serious note the city planners have done a great job of getting the balance right between old and new and they sit very well side by side, it is one of those places except for the traffic feels right and a place that merits more time to investigate it. After visiting many interesting places with attachment to the American War of Independence including the site of the Boston Tea Party we arrived at my Mecca, Fenway. The place I have seen so many times on TV and I was there and a chance to tour around before that evenings match, absolute bliss, for all you non baseball fans it lived up to all my expectations and more, I went and had a couple of beers in the bleachers bar where I managed to talk to some season ticket holders about all things Red Sox the end to my perfect day. I joined my bus again for the trip back to the Cruise Terminal. Boston who all the locals referrer to as a Town and not a City is more than worthy of a few days visiting to explore properly about the only things not to like it are Lobsters and Clams