The cheap bus is cheap for a reason - it doesn't drop you in Boston hehe. Instead it drops you at the end of a subway line in an outer Boston suburb. Our accommodation was on the same subway line and was within walking distance of this - Cambridge, home to both Harvard University (one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the land) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In other words, it's full of smart social rejects ;) So we started our wanderings around here.

We found a campus dorm and wandered on in for a nosey like we owned the place.

More trees and grass than we have around our apartment.

Everywhere we looked people were moving their crap out of the dorms and heading home for the summer break.

Toasters, microwaves, pimple cream - it all had to go.

Harvard, and Boston itself, sits along the Charles River - good for sitting over and puffing down cigars with your gal-pals. Seriously, that's what they were doing hehe.

Harvard Business School across the river. Hard to believe George Dubya Bush graduated from here.

Harvard was established all the way back in 1636 by Mr John Harvard here, and is the oldest institution of higher learning in the US. Assuming you believe everything you read on Wikipedia, this statue is apparently not a likeness of John Harvard; there is nothing to indicate what he actually looked like.

We had a good wander round, and Kristina pondered why she never made it into Harvard ;)

The Harvard University Library is the largest academic library in the US and one of the largest in the world. The whole library system contains more than 16 million volumes - phew!

And this was our (funky) accommodation out in the Boston 'burbs. It was a very cool old place, but every footstep I took felt like it might be my last before falling through the floor.

Later that night we ventured into downtown Boston for some grub and to see the place by night (it was forecast to piss with rain the next night, so it was now or never).

Boston Common, dating from 1634. In case you hadn't noticed, this city is bloody old (by American standards) and has a bloody exciting history to match. More on that later.

Whoa check it out - one of those dark and dodgy alleys you see in movies! I haven't even found one of these in New York!

Overlooking the Back Bay area of central Boston from Charles River. Somewhere in there a couple bombs went off a month ago. More on that later too.

Then we found this - the real Cheers bar in Beacon Hill! The bar's former name is the Bull & Finch Pub, and was used for the exterior scenes of the sitcom during its 11-year run. Very cool! And with that, we called it a night.

We started the next day at Copley Square in front of New England's tallest building - the John Hancock Tower. Dwarfed beside it there is Trinity Church.

Copley Square is right up the street from the finishing line of the Boston Marathon - the location of the two bomb blasts. The square currently contains a huge memorial with running shoes, flowers, stuffed toys - the works.

Sad stuff.

And here it is, and all those people gathered in the background over there is where the first of the two bombs exploded.

The pressure cooker bombs exploded 13 seconds and 190 metres apart along Boylston Street here. Three people were killed, 264 were injured, and many of them lost limbs (the result of the explosions and/or subsequent amputations). There is an image floating around the internet of a guy lying the sidewalk here with half of his left leg missing - literally blown off below the knee. Not a pretty sight, and he wasn't the only one. The two brothers, of Chechen origin, who carried out the attacks were motivated by extremist Islamist beliefs and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the younger of the two who was captured alive. Three days later, after being identified, they went on to kill an MIT police officer during a botched robbery on campus, and the older brother was shot and killed by police in a botched carjacking thereafter (during which the younger brother escaped). Certain areas of Boston were put under a mandatory curfew as a massive manhunt ensued. The public transportation system and most businesses and public institutions were shut down. 24 hours later the little prick was located and arrested. Investigators later learned the carjacking was part of a plan to drive to Times Square in New York and set a few more bombs off. The car was low on fuel however, and it all went wrong for them from there.

A month on, it's back to business as usual along Boylston Street.

We (or I) thought about hiring a car for this trip, but all the travel forums said driving around Boston is a terrible idea. They were right.

This is Newbury Street, a popular shopping spot full of boutique shops, hair salons, eateries, you name it. I have a whopping great hole in the crotch of my jeans which happened as I was jumping up on a fence to get a photo during our little Connecticut road trip a couple months back hehe. I haven't got round to replacing them yet and this would have been the ideal spot, but the weather was bearing down on us so we continued on.

This is Commonwealth Ave, divided in two by a wide grassy mall and almost comparable to a Paris boulevard. In fact I also read in various travel forums that Boston has the most European feel of any US city. I haven't been to every US city (yet ;) but it really does have an air of Europe about it. I imagine those apartments are worth a ton.

And back to Boston Common. The 20 hectare park is a gorgeous spot right in the heart of the city. Throughout Boston's history, the park has had various purposes and witnessed various events includeing cow pastures, war-time camps, riots, concerts, and some chick being hanged in 1656 on charges of witchcraft ("burn the witch!").

Oh to be young again.

A strict curfew is enforced on the park which has been protested by the homeless population of Boston. They rather like it here.

It's a hard-knock life.

That's us!

The Common is the start of the Freedom Trail, a 4km (2.5-mile) path through downtown Boston that leads to 17 significant historic sites (of which Boston Common is #1). We didn't follow all of it, but did pass a few notable sites. This is the Old South Meeting House, built in 1729. It gained fame as the organising point for the Boston Tea Party in 1773 - a political protest against the tax policy of the British Government (who ruled the land at the time) and the East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the British colonies based in the Americas (more on them later). After officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor hahaha!

Up the street is the Old State House. Built in 1713, it was the seat of the Massachusetts legislature until 1798, and the oldest surviving public building in Boston. Out the back in 1770, British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

Further along the Freedom Trail is Faneuil Hall, a marketplace and meeting hall ever since it was built in 1742. It was the site of several speeches by American revolutionaries such as Samuel Adams (as in the name of the Boston beer) encouraging independence from Great Britain.

From there the trail continued through the very Italian North End neighbourhood (also with a European feel to it) before crossing the Charles River and eventually finishing near the Bunker Hill Monument - the huge granite obelisk in the distance there. The monument, one of the first in the United States, was erected to commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first major conflict between British and Patriot forces in the American Revolutionary War in 1775 (more on that later too). With spots of rain starting to fall and our tired legs screaming for mercy, we didn't bother heading over there.

We wanted to continue along Boston's awesome waterfront, but unfortunately it wasn't to be (this time) and we were forced to find shelter as the heavens finally opened.

Perfect! This is the Green Dragon Tavern, first opened in 1657. Although we didn't know it before wandering in, this pub is steeped in history. And this is where I educate the uneducated (including myself) on the American Revolution in a nutshell.

By the way look at Miss Boston there hahaha! She bought the hoodie from a street vendor outside the Old South Meeting House because she was underdressed for the unseasonably cold weather today, got stuck into some clam chowder for which Boston is well-known, and downed some Sam Adams (for which Boston is also well-known).

British colonisation of the Americas began way back in 1607, and reached its peak in 1733 when a total of 13 colonies (conveniently known as the Thirteen Colonies) had been established throughout, further expanding the British Empire. Following political upheaval in the 1760s and 1770s known as the American Revolution (primarily over representation, local laws and tax issues), the Thirteen Colonies united militarily in opposition to Great Britain. The British responded by sending combat troops to re-establish royalist control, leading to the American Revolutionary War in 1775. George Washington became the American Commander (and thus its first president). In 1776 the newly-formed American congress, consisting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies, declared their independence and formed a new nation, the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4th, 1776, now celebrated as Independence Day. Shortly thereafter, the British lost their hold on Boston but captured and held New York City. The French then got involved in 1778 as allies of the United States. The British Army was fully captured by 1781, effectively ending the war. A peace treaty in 1783, the Treaty of Paris (just one of many that go by the same name), confirmed the new nation's complete separation from the British Empire.

As for the Green Dragon Tavern here, it was deemed the "Headquarters of the Revolution". The Sons of Liberty, which included Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, would hold regular meetings here during the time of the American Revolution (as depicted in the painting on the wall) to discuss and plan. The Boston Tea Party was planned here in 1773, and Paul Revere (whose former home we passed on the Freedom trail) was sent from here on his famous horse ride in 1775 to warn colonial militia in neighbouring Massachusetts towns of approaching British forces before the Battles of Lexington and Concord - the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.

With the rain still coming down, we headed back to Cheers for dinner. My wide-angle lens makes the interior of the bar look smaller than it actually is. Although it is smaller than the bar featured in the TV series (filmed in a Hollywood studio), that bar was based on the design and layout this of this one. And that was that for that day!

The next day was our last, and we had just enough time for a tour of this before heading back to the bus - the Samuel Adams Brewery (gotta be done!).

Follow this fat alcoholic as he drinks beer all over the state.

A brewery tour is a brewery tour is a brewery tour, but I'm a big Sam fan, the tour is free, and hey - Sam is a big deal here ;)

I did learn one interesting titbit - some of their beers use hops from New Zealand! Apparently they impart a subtle grape taste to the beer; no doubt!

Sam Adams was founded in 1984, and this is where the magic happens. Not much to it really. Just a huge room filled with a lot of tanks.

The brewery contracts production out to several other breweries with excess capacity. This brewery is mainly used for R&D purposes.

Sam?

Then came the best part - tasting! Sam Adams produces about a dozen 'core' beers, plus several seasonal beers among others.