Hi friends, and happy Tuesday! Last weekend Nate and I went on a weekend getaway to New England. When we visited Portland, Oregon in the spring of 2022 we thought, “how cool would it be if we could check out BOTH Portlands this year?” And then we made it happen! It was so much fun to get away for a little vacation with my cutie husband.
I’ll recap the first part of Boston today, and tomorrow I’ll share our pics from second part of Boston. (And then Portland, Maine will be next.) I have so many dang pictures, so apologies in advance for the flood of photos coming your way. I just couldn’t pare it down any more than I did!
So, here’s part one of our trip in BOSTON!
Hello from the Austin airport! We flew out on Thursday morning. I’m becoming more and more of an early-to-the-airport person and then relax at the gate, so we got there with plenty of time to spare and stopped at the Caffe Medici by our gate for a couple of coffees.
So excited to be traveling together! Last time we went on a trip I was still pumping and had to bring along all of the breast pump supplies/bags/ice chests/etc. Needless to say, this time I felt so FREEEEE!!!
The Caffe Medici at the airport started offering breakfast tacos, and I have to say that they’re a pass… The Tacodeli location was way at the other side of the airport so we decided to give these a try, but they just weren’t awesome. Listen: if you serve your breakfast tacos with a commercially-sealed packet of salsa, you have no business selling these breakfast tacos in Austin.
I had an absolutely lovely flight experience on the way to Boston and arrived early Thursday evening ready to explore!
We stayed at the Godfrey Hotel..
Here’s a picture of our room. It was a beautiful hotel! We mostly chose it for the coffee shop on site, haha.
And for the location. It’s right by Boston Common and a T stop, so it was a very convenient place of our *very* quick stay in Boston.
We dropped our stuff at the hotel and immediately went out to explore! Love this man so much.
Brisk weather! Jeans! Boots! Old red bricks!
I absolutely love the feeling you get during the first few hours of a trip. It’s all anticipation at this point because the entire trip is still in the future.
We walked over to Sam Adams tap room (when in Boston, right?) for a few beers and a snack.
This was both Nate’s and my first trip to Boston. It’s a city I’ve wanted to explore for years…can’t believe I hadn’t made it happen until last weekend. (Spoiler alert: I’m already trying to figure out when I can get back to New England.)
^ Haha to this sign..
The tap room was really big, beautiful space, located right by Faneuil Hal.
Cheers! We went with the Boston Lager, and Oktoberfest, a coffee stout (the fall weather had me craving all of the cozy beers), and a schwarzbier.
…and after those we got another flight of beer.
The Boston Lager (#1) was the only repeat.
Happy to be drinking beer in the cool fall weather! Forgive me if I mention the fall weather 40 times in this post…it’s just that Texas gets a failing grade when it comes to fall vibes, so we have to artificially create fall festivities in Austin. It was so lovely to embrace the cool temps and fall foliage and an *actual* desire to drink stouts and porters and marzens.
^ I thought this was cool…Sam Adams tap room had charging stations on the top of their tables. Very chic-looking on the pale wooden tables, but also practical.
Pretzels and beer cheese for a little pre-dinner snack.
And then we headed to the oldest city park in the United States: Boston Common…
…for a Freedom Trail tour. In October they do a spooky evening tour called The Lantern Tour. It’s a tour of some of the main Freedom Trail sights, but they intersperse stories and facts about some of the “spooky” sides of it.
AKA the gory history of Boston. (Not a city I would have wanted to live in back in the 1600-1700s…)
It’s so very odd to be in a city that has a history, haha! Every little nook and cranny of the city has stories and interesting facts about it. (Clearly I’ve been in Texas too long where the most interesting buildings are about 100 years old…)
The old State House… when I took this picture I was standing right by the Boston Massacre site.
And I’m obviously not going to bore you with a hundred photos of old buildings, but this one is cool! It’s the Parker House Hotel, and it’s where JFK proposed to Jackie (among other interesting historic events…) The hotel is currently operated by The Omni and you can still stay there!
It was dark and WINDY and cold during the tour! The Lantern Tour was about 90 minutes long and we covered a bit less than a mile of ground. Nate’s leg doesn’t do great during standing (walking is a bit easier for him than standing in long stretches) so he would typically find a bench or a wall to sit on while the tour guide was stopping us to share stories.
I’ll be honest: it was tricky to navigate this trip with his leg. He’s able to walk pretty well for a couple miles each day, and then it starts to swell up and start bother him and his limp is a bit more pronounced. Before his car accident, we would walk like 10-ish miles per day on trips. We would just walk and walk and walk! It’s very odd now to go on a trip together and have to catch a ride share to something that’s .7 miles away instead of just walking to it.
So when I was booking activities for this trip, I had to make sure to make everything as central as possible, only book 1 walking experience per day, and make sure that we had lots of stuff to do where he could stay off his foot.
The tour ended right by Faneuil Hall (right next to the Sam Adams tap room we were at earlier that day) and from there we were just a few blocks away from our dinner reservations..
At the COOLEST little natural wine bar! It’s called Haley.Henry, and it’s a James Beard Award-nominated wine bar with tinned fish, ceviche, and crudo.
My hair’s all messy from the windy tour around Boston, but we are SO happy to be in Boston on a dinner date.
The tinned fish were just so much fun. We picked a tuna belly packed in oil, and it was served with toasty pieces of grilled bread, about 1/2 a stick of soft butter, fresh herbs, lemon, and salt.
You would pick up the bread, smear a big layer of soft butter on it, and put a few pieces of the fish on top of that. Squeeze some lemon juice, a little sprinkle of chives and parsley, and some of the course salt, and…
…voila! One of the simplest and most delicious things. I need to remember to do this at home for a fun dinner/date night at home idea.
(PS to my local Austin friends: I know that Meteor here in Austin has fish tins, and my friend Shveta told me that LoLo Wine offers the same thing.)
We headed back to the hotel, and The Godfrey had left a bottle of wine in our room. So wonderful! Those tiny touches make all the difference at a hotel.
Short and sweet today because I’m getting my act together as I launch back into real life.. I’ll share part 2 of this trip tomorrow.
PS: a trip last weekend to NYC, and a little Chicago getaway earlier this fall.
