New England Road Trip: Beacon Hill PhotoWalks Tour, Boston Public Gardens, Boston Tea Party Museum, Faneuil Hall, & Quincy Market | Boston, MA

I began the day by going on a PhotoWalks tour through Beacon Hill (a historic and super cute neighborhood). The tour group was small and Saba, our tour guide, was nice. She lead us through Beacon Hill and showed us historic and current places of interest in the neighborhood. She also suggested camera angels and shots to consider and helped people choose the correct camera manual setting without being pushy. 

The oldest house in Beacon Hill (gray building)

The smallest door ever! The fire hydrant is standard size.

A side note, if you want a clean picture of Acorn Street, the most photographed street in America, be sure to get there really early in the morning. Otherwise you will be competing with hordes of tourists and locals using it as a photo backdrop.

Acorn Street

After the photo tour, I got lunch from a nearby bakery and ate it on a bench in the Boston Public Gardens. Since I was in the Gardens, I tried to take a picture of the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture. However, it seemed that every small child in Boston was getting their picture taken while sitting on the ducks. So no clean photo for me, lol. 

Lunch view

Boston Tea Party Museum

Next, I visited the Boston Tea Party Museum. It was fantastic!!! I'm a little sad that I haven't visited it during previous trips to Boston. 

At the Boston Tea Party Museum, visitors are led on a guided tour by actors in costume. All of our tour guides were great! To begin the tour, everyone receive a card of a person who participated in the tea party and a feather to "disguise" yourself as a Native American. 

First, we took part in a re-enactment of a town hall meeting. Then, we went on board a replica of one of the three boats that were carrying tea in Boston harbor. We learned about the ship, how the colonist tossed over 400 crates of tea into the harbor (which would have taken several hours), and you get the opportunity to toss a box of "tea" into the harbor as well. 

Tea overboard!

Next, we went on the dock and our tour guide told us about other cargo the ships would have transported, the legends of the people who were involved in the tea party (they thought one participant died, but it turned out he didn't), etc. Finally, we went into a small museum (no pictures inside) and saw the last remaining tea chest, learned about the English reaction, and watched a cool video depicting actions after the tea party until the battle of Bunker Hill. 

After the tour, I visited the cafe and sampled the same teas the colonists drank. There were five options, two were green and three were black. I tried all of the black teas, I'm not a fan of green tea. Two were pretty bad, but one was okay. I also visited the gift shop and was pleasantly surprised. It was huge and the items were reasonably priced. If you are in the market for Boston souvenirs, visit this gift shop. Also, if you are even slightly interested in American history, visit this museum!! I can't recommend it highly enough :) 

After the Boston Tea Party Museum, I visited Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market (they're next door to each other). I did some shopping (bought more Christmas ornaments at Christmas in Boston...it's amazing!!) and had dinner in Faneuil Hall. Pro tip: if you want to eat somewhere specific on a Saturday night in Boston, make reservations. I tried to have dinner at Carmelina's and the Union Oyster House but both restaurants had a 90+ minute wait for one person. Saturday night in Boston...who knew? Luckily, this was the only time I did not get seated immediately at a restaurant during this trip.