New England Road Trip: National Park Service Freedom Trail Tour & the Boston Harbor Cruise | Boston, MA

Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market

Because I was out late the night before, I started the day later than usual. I went on the 11 am National Park Service Tours of the Freedom Trail: Meetings, Mobs, & Martyrs. The tours are free but you need a ticket to attend (they don't hand out tickets until 30 minutes before the tour begins). 

I got to Faneuil Hall early, where to tours depart, so I went to the second floor, where the original meeting house still stands, and listened to a park ranger give a 15ish minute talk about the history of the meeting house. The space was pretty and the talk was interesting.

Old State House

Old South Meeting House

Next, I went on the Freedom Trail walking tour. The ranger was nice and the information was interesting, but the tour was weird. That tour could have been conducted inside with a slideshow. We walked to three buildings (Faneuil Hall, Old State House aka the Boston Massacre Site, and the Old South Meeting House) and he gave 15-20 minute lectures about the building and/or site. There was no talking or pointing out other sites along the way, just mini-lectures. 

The Freedom Trail

It wasn't the best tour I've been on, and it made me not as sad to have missed the other Freedom Trail ranger tour the day before, lol. Google Maps kept freezing on my way to the Tea Party Museum, which made me arrive later than planned, which made me miss the ranger tour. Boston was the only city where I had issues with Google Maps. I have since found out other friends had similar issues, so remember to take that into consideration while you are exploring Boston.

After the NPS tour, I had lunch and then I sat on a bench on Boston Harbor and wrote postcards to send to friends and family. My last activity for the day was the Boston Harbor Cruise. I went on the Historic Sightseeing Cruise and it was amazing! It was a little pricey ($32) but definitely worth it!

The tour lasted about 90 minutes. Our guide was an Irishman named Declan (ironic that he's giving a tour about American history??, lol). He was nice, informative, and entertaining! On our tour, we saw the USS Constitution, aka Old Iron Side, and learned that she fires her canons twice a day (at sunrise and sunset). 

USS Constitution and the Bunker Hill Monument

According to Declan, someone thought it would be a good idea to build high-end condos next to where the USS Constitution is docked. The condo residents were annoyed by the cannons and started a protest to make her stop firing her canons twice a day. In response to the complaints, the USS Constitution stopped firing her cannons twice a day. Instead she fired them once an hour for several days in a row. Eventually, the condo boards withdrew their complaints, lol. Yeah, USS Constitution!!