And Moving (Not So Swiftly) On

Yesterday was a long and tiring day. We were sorry to leave Iceland, this weird and wonderful country where half the nation believes in elves,where there are annual sheep groping contests and where its capital city has a museum dedicated solely to The Penis!! There was so much more to see than we had time for, so we hope one day to make a return journey to discover the glaciers, the volcanoes, the puffins and the beautiful northern lights that were hidden by clouds all the time we were there.
Our flight to Boston was delayed by one and a half hours which meant we were waiting at the airport for three and a half hours before take off. When we reached our destination there was a further delay in disembarking due to a medical emergency on board the plane. (Jim was so relieved when the call for a doctor came over the tannoy and a young American lady sprang forward to the rescue.) However, we reached our hotel safely and retired to bed at what was 4am to us.
This morning we set off to explore Boston, ancestral home of the Kennedys and birthplace of Sylvia Plath, and it turns out to be a beautiful city with neither Red Sox or baked beans in sight. But hey, do y'all see that there blue sky?

The State House Boston Common with 23ct gold dome !

We joined The Freedom Trail on Boston Common right adjacent to our hotel and it links all the most important colonial and revolutionary era historical sites.

We learned such a lot about Boston's history and saw countless monuments to the city's great and good.

Benjamin Franklin

Paul Revere

And surprisingly, physicians have a different approach to looking after their patients in this country!

We climbed 294 steps to the top of the obelisk that commemorates the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775) that ended with a costly victory for the British against a tin pot colonial army that ran out of ammunition. What a pity the windows at the top were so dirty that the views were distorted!

After the 3 mile trail we visited the Museum of Fine Arts.

This is a stupendous place housing world class collections of American and European art as well as collections of photography, textiles, musical instruments, in fact too much to mention, from all over the world. The ceiling of the  central rotunda was painted by John Singer Sargent one of my favourite artists. Another eye-opening exhibition was by an Israeli artist named Ori Gersht. He is worth googling. His art brings a whole new meaning to old meets new.
After leaving the MFA we strolled to Boston City Library, another architectural masterpiece with more of John Singer Sargent's murals. It's the sort of place that makes you yearn to study!

Across from the library was a farmer's market where we were amazed by the variety of squashes and pumpkins, the colours of carrots (purple) and long beans (purple and cream) and the size and variety of apples.
By this time it was late afternoon so we decided to walk back to our hotel stopping on the way to look at the 19th century  brownstone houses in the cobbled streets of the neighbourhood.

 This is a conservation area where the millionaires of Boston live. I could live here! It's so, so beautiful.

(post begun Tues 25th completed Wed 26th)