If Bar Harbor was busy because of Columbus week-end, then we should have expected Boston to be as well. The coach trip from harbourside to drop off point, normally a 15 minute journey, lasted 1 hr +. The airconditioning on the coach had also broken and we were sat in almost 30 degrees and high humidity stuck in traffic. There was a huge parade for the celebrations and the Police were closing off streets systematically in order to allow the parade to take place. We could have walked it in 25 minutes. When we got to our designated drop off point, there was another bus parked there and we weren’t allowed even to drop off so had to go round the loop again.
We’d decided to walk around Boston on our own and see Boston Common and Public Gardens – a decent enough walk around, bearing in mind the now reduced time we had. There were no real highlights, except perhaps for the tools of the trade left deserted by a busker – I wouldn’t have known which bit to play first. I was now beginning to feel under the weather, the next 3 days I was full of cold. Still – we had a good walk around. Sue wanted to go down Charles Street where the decent shops were said to be. That was quite a nice area – we had coffee in a small corner cafe and went back to the pickup point. When we arrived, our Oceania guide was nowhere to be seen but it was the pick up point for another ship that was in at the same time, so, because of the traffic problems, their guide said he’d take us as well, provided that there weren’t any of his passengers still waiting, which was good of him. We were waiting for an eternity though and even then, the coach had to park 5 blocks away because of the congestion. A well earned beer when we got back was in our minds as we boarded.