The Freedom Trail...

Marked by a red brick line, the Freedom Trail runs from the middle of Boston Common all the way into Charlestown, and goes passed some fascinating placed along the way.

We joined the trail by Faneuil Hall and walked up Union Street, and along Hanover Street - which I'm not sure, but felt like a little Italy. Full of Italian restaurants, pizza places, and pastry shops that all seemed to have loooooooooooong queues outside.

We resisted the urge to wait for a pastry and carried on following the red line towards Paul Revere's House...

 Paul Revere was the tell-tale who told everyone that we Brits were coming. He was also friends with Samuel Adams, of the Sam Adams beer fame.

We reinacted the famous 'The British are coming!' moment for ourselves in the gift shop...

 Because we were a bit rushed for time, and we wanted to see as much of the Freedom Trail as possible and then get down to the see the Tea Party Ship, we didn't go in the house (which I regret now), but it's on our list for when we go back to Boston (which we definitely will!).

The Freedom Trail then goes along Hull Street, where we walked towards the Old North Church, passed the statue of Paul Revere himself...

 By the church was a special memorial for all of the soldiers who Boston had lost to wars, it was a quiet and understated memorial, but it was pretty powerful at the same time. Each solider was represented by a silver dog tag...

 Just round the corner from the church Abi spotted a sign that said 'Printing Press' - so we went to investigate a little further. It turned out to be a man, dressed in full period clothing, using a replica of the printing press that would have been used to print the newspapers and flyers encouraging boys to become soldiers...

It was fascinating watching him apply the ink with a big spongy ball, and winding the big wheel to press down the block on top of the paper and leave an impression - making the newsletter. It certainly made us appreciate how much easier it is to print something now!

We carried on following the red brick road and the lovely brass plaques along the trail, over to the river, looking over to Charlestown. We didn't cross the bridge, as the clouds were starting to look a little gloomy and we had some other places we wanted to see before the clouds turned to rain.

The clouds looked like a tidal wave coming in!

We strayed from the Freedom Trail on the way back towards Quincy Market, wandering down some of the little side streets before getting back onto Hanover Street. Some of the houses around that area have turned a fascinating shade of green...

There were quite a few buildings that had turned this colour, we couldn't worked out what it was, it couldn't be that the whole house was covered in copper - could it?!

 We walked back passed all the shops, and passed the market...

Where there was some brass rubbish embedded in the ground...

... and then we made our way down towards the river, passed Faneuil Hall, passed Quincy Market, passed a beautiful Shire Horse and kart...

 ... and passed the Old State House...

It's another beautiful old building, steeped in history, surrounded by modern skyscrapers - unfortunately it was also closed for refurbishment. Another thing that was added to the list for our next visit to Boston.