We begin this tour with pick up at 9 or 9:30AM (inquire about airport, train, or cruise ship pick up times), and take you through old Boston. This tour includes many Freedom Trail sites, Cheers or Fenway Park, if you’re interested, the interior of Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. We then cross the Charles River to tour the oldest college in the United States – Harvard University (1636). General Washington disbanded the Minutemen and Militia across the street from Harvard’s campus, and created the Continental Army here. Washington borrowed Harvard to use as our first Army Base during his 11-month siege of British occupied Boston in 1775-1776, and we’ll show you the elegant Georgian mansion where he lived with Martha. The house is referred to as America’s First Pentagon by some, as most of the major leaders of the Revolution came her to confer with Washington about the war’s progress. This mansion was later home to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for half a century.
We then head west and follow Paul Revere’s route through Lexington, Minuteman National Park, and into Concord, which was England’s first inland settlement in the New World beginning in 1635. Concord is home of the Concord Grape, and approximately 70% of commercially grown grapes in the United States have their origins in the Concord Grape. In this bucolic old town, the “shot heard round the world” ignited the shooting aspect of the American Revolution.
With limited time, you’ll have to choose what sites to see in Concord. The town is as if it were from a Norman Rockwell painting – perhaps enjoy Walden Pond; homes of authors such as Louisa May Alcott, Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and more. Current authors who live in town include Patricia Cornwell, Doris Kearns Goodwin and David Allen Sibley.
You can tour Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, visit Author’s Ridge, or just stroll around the town, walking through quaint old Colonial-era cemeteries, enjoying snacks, buying lunch to-go at the Concord Cheese Shop (open since 1860). You can walk through Vanderhoofs, a 110-year-old hardware store that is still owned by the same family, and see what a real hardware store looked like in your grandparents’ day.
Other lunch options include a leisurely sit-down lunch in a charming, historic, 300-year-old country inn. Should you choose this option, you’ll have to forego seeing much of Concord, but you may enjoy the slower pace after seeing a lot in the morning – it’s your tour, so it’s your choice. Other alternatives range from local sandwich shops for a quick bite so you can resume sightseeing, or we can also arrange for quality boxed lunches at around $18.00 (includes sandwich, cookies, beverage and chips), and you can picnic on public benches – weather permitting – in Minuteman National Park, or you can “chew and ride”.
