Did You Save Any Room For Dessert?

One of the great things about having friends close by is you can ask them to watch your kids. Or even better--you don't even have to ask, they just volunteer. Our best friends did just that, and we were able to spend a night alone in Beantown.

We stayed at the oldest, continuously operating hotel in America--The Omni Parker House, right on the Freedom Trail in downtown Boston. They lay claim to the creation of both the Parker House roll and the Boston Cream Pie. We sampled the pie and found it to be superb!! Although, the best part of this hotel had to be the fact that, since it was on the Freedom Trail, there was a red brick walkway that led us right from our hotel to some of the must see sights, and all we had to do was follow it back.

Bad weather (which seems to be a theme for us) did not deter us from heading on foot to the North End, basically Boston's Little Italy, and we dined at a delightful Italian restaurant with fabulous Tiramisu (if you're keeping score, that's 2 desserts already). It's a good thing we were not competing in the Amazing Race because we would have so lost! We were literally at the restaurant, but ended up crossing the street and going around the block before realizing it was where we had started. I can see how the producers would have had a shot of us saying "Where is it? I don't see it" with the restaurant's name clearly visible ten feet behind us. Classic.

Of course we had to do some shopping. We hit Fanueil Hall and Quincy Market. In celebration of the Olympics and a local hero - we stopped in at Bill Rodgers Running shop. We like to buy discontinued shoes there (to get the discount). We are pretty sure the sales clerk we had was actually Bill Rodgers. He won the Boston Marathon multiple times and is huge part of the local running scene. His store is this tiny little hole-in-the-wall shop. Not what we originally expected, but at the same time strangely refreshing after buying running shoes in the big chain stores.

Thankfully, the next morning was glorious weather, and we walked around the North End some more, geocaching at the Old North Church (made famous by Paul Revere, maybe you've heard of him?--one if by land, two if by sea), strolled along the waterfront with lunch at a local seafood favorite, Legal Seafood, and walked along the Charles River and through Harvard Yard before returning to the North End to hit Mike's Pastry for some cannoli and pastry puffs (yes, that's 3). Mike's is a very popular place here. When we stopped in earlier in the morning they already had a few customers, but by 4 in the afternoon when we returned for a to-go dessert it was standing room only.

We didn't quite make it on Rachael Ray's $40 a day plan--it was much closer to $40 an hour, but we had a great time and enjoyed every last morsel.