Day 5: Boston

June 13, 2025

Day 5: Boston

I'm falling a little behind on these posts! I'll get right into it.

On Wednesday, we woke up at the Fairfield Inn in Woburn, a suburb of Boston. We took the T (Boston metro) to Cambridge and started out our day with a visit to Harvard. It's a pleasant campus, with mostly brick colonial buildings.

The John Harvard Statue in Harvard Yard. There are no existing pictures of John Harvard, so the sculpture used a random Harvard student as a model.

Annenberg Hall, an impressive dining hall

The philosophy building, which has the inscription "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" I was excited to see this because it's mentioned in my favorite book, The Idiot by Elif Batuman.

Widener Library, the largest academic library in the world.

After Harvard, we visited Josh and Spencer's friend Nolan at MIT. He's a PhD candidate and does robotics research. MIT has one nice building and quad, but most of the campus ranges from ugly/utilitarian to very strange. Nolan showed us some of the equipment and robots in his labs.

Weird MIT building

Josh, Nolan, and Spencer

Josh and I then separated from Spencer and Ashley temporarily to get lunch with our friend Alex. She was in ISI with us. We met her at a cute cafe in the South End, near Back Bay, and had sandwiches and coffee. It's a really lovely neighborhood, with charming row houses and cafes and bakeries on the street corners. It reminds me a little of Dupont Circle in DC. Sadly, we forgot to get a picture with Alex.

After lunch, we all met back up again at the Boston Public Library, which might be one of my favorite places in the world. I visited last time I was in Boston, my senior year of college. I love the murals representing different fields of learning around the staircase, the reading room, and the courtyard. I wish every city had a nice public library like this.

The reading room, which anyone can access, even without a library card

We walked across the street from the library and saw the Old South Church, where some colonists met before the Boston Tea Party. In retaliation, the British took over the church and used it for riding practice.

The inside of the Old South Church

Mary Chilton, an ancestor

After the library and church, we started the freedom trail and spent most of the day on that. It was my first time doing almost the full thing in order (when I visited two years ago, it was raining a lot). I especially enjoyed the Granary Burying Ground (where Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams are buried) and Union Street. Spencer and Ashley enjoyed seeing Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market.

By Mary Chilton's grave in the King's Chapel Burying Ground

Faneuil Hall

Union Street and the Union Oyster House

The last few stops of the freedom trail are in the North End, also known as Boston's Little Italy. It's an amazing neighborhood! It really feels like Italy in many parts. We took a break from walking at Caffe Vittoria, the oldest Italian cafe in Boston. I got a mocha, and the other three got lemon sodas. The waitresses all spoke to each other in Italian, and it feels like a great local spot. (It's also cash-only and surprisingly cheap.)

Josh and Spencer with their lemon sodas

The whole cafe is decorated with antique espresso machines and coffee makers.

After our break at Caffe Vittoria, we walked around the North End some more. It's such a nice place to spend an evening! Definitely my favorite neighborhood in Boston.

St. Leonard Church, the first Catholic church built by Italian immigrants in New England.

You can see on streets like these why people say Boston is "the most European city in America"

Paul Revere's house

Paul Revere statue and the Old North Church behind it

"All Saints Way," a shrine to dozens of saints in an alley

Sunset at the river

We finished the day with a nice dinner at Filippo Ristorante. We were seated by a big open window looking out at the street and river, and we had a lot of fun having a long sit-down meal as the sun went down.