Today was somewhat of a contrast to Thursday, clear skies had been replaced by heavy low clouds, and the odd bit of drizzle. This is ahead of our full day of exploring.
Interactive Boston Tea Party Museum
The first stop is the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, just a short walk away from the hotel. Its a really interesting interactive tour explaining the history of colonial America and the Boston Tea Party, from the American point of view. First, there is a courtroom-style ‘play’ style introduction, before moving onto the ship. Once onboard the ship, you’re able to see what life would have been like onboard, as well as being able to famously throw the tea overboard. At the end of the tour is a tea room and a gift shop.
Afterwards, we headed to View Boston, one of the latest attractions at the top of one of Boston’s tallest buildings. It allowed us to use the Metro system, using the Charlie Ticket, which is similar to our Oyster card. It was only a few stops to Back Bay (Boston is walkable, so nothing is too far).
View Boston
For those who know Boston, the View is essentially at the top of the Prudential Center, a large shopping complex in Back Bay. You enter through the shopping centre, with lifts taking you to the top. There is plenty of space, and large screens give you an augmented reality version of the city, giving tips and suggestions of places to go, attractions, restaurants and other landmarks which can be placed into an itinerary. This would be an ideal place to go to start.
Our next stop was lunch. Joe’s on Newbury, a very nice more traditional restaurant (although I had Mexican tacos), which then led us to head to the very nice bakery across the street, Levain with its vast array of different cookies. Although we had to get back to the hotel for the evening, we took the opportunity to walk back via the Cheers bar, which has a replica of the set within the building. It functions, so you can have a drink there if you wish.
The Iconic Cheers Bar in Beacon Hill
For our evening entertainment, it was time to meet up with our Irish colleagues at the theatre. On Thursday, JetBlue launched new services to Dublin from both New York JFK and Boston, and they were just staying in Boston for a couple of nights.
For many years, I have been friends with JetBlue’s European Manager, Maja Gedosev, and with her taking the Irish agents, it was lovely to actually meet in person at last!
The Cher Show, Wang Theatre
We went to the Wang Theatre in Boston, located downtown. We took a car, but you could have technically walked it as it wasn’t far from Boston Common. As we were in JetBlue’s hospitality box, we got to sample what would be the equivalent of lounge access at the theatre, which is gorgeous. The show – The Cher Show, with all Cher’s hits and the story of her life isn’t too dissimilar to what they did with the Tina musical.
