Great Western Coffee Shop

Yesterday, we visited Boston.

Arriving into the city, we passed under the flight path of Logan airport to berth at the "Black Falcon Cruise Terminal".

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It feels ironic that entry into Canada was no more that filling a form, but entry into the USA, "the land of the free", requires an ESTA application before travelling, an I94 form filled in on the ship, and a face to face meeting with an immigration officer.  Some 14 of these latter came on board and sat in Carmen's, and all 1,800 plus passengers visited them over a three hour period to be talked to, and have passports stamped.  Ship's announcements warned us that they are people there doing a job and not to make jokes with them ... good advise based on what I have in the past observed to be a pretty dour bunch.  They loosen up slightly when they see Lisa's USA passport alongside my "alien" one.

The cruise terminal is only a couple of miles from the city centre, but set off on dockyard isthmus that left us requiring transfer buses rather than being into the metro or bus network.

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What a good example we set of how not to prepare for a city visit ... and we ended up near where the bus had dropped us off, wandering around Boston's equivalent of Covent Garden.  Performers,  souvenirs for sale that you would really wonder why you had bought them later, and eateries - both stalls from which you could eat in the open or communal areas, and overpriced restaurants.  As a one-off we allowed ourselves to be drawn in to one of the bar / restaurants - an admittedly beautiful bowl of clam chowder, a reuben sandwich, an oversized ceasar salad and ices teas ... leading to an oversized bill!

I'll share some pics ...

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As a public transport forum, I'm going to offer you a single picture of the local transit bus in Boston.  Could be just about any city along this coastline - single decker, front entrance to pay the driver, accessible and with that cycle rack on the front.

Traffic downtown Boston was heavy - perhaps fairly typical big city stuff - with parking advertised at $30 per day.  That latter didn't seem to have put people off driving - but I guess there's a need to bring in an awful lot of people per acre with all the sky scrapers.

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