DK Travel : Boston : Beacon Hill

With its elegant, 200 year-old row houses, quaint grocers, pricey antique shops, and hidden gardens, Beacon Hill screams “old money” like no other area in Boston. That some of the city’s most exorbitant apartment rentals can still be found here suggests it will remain an enclave of exclusivity for years to come. Yet throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, this inimitably charming neighborhood was a veritable checkerboard of ethnicities and earning groups – segregated though they were. Little of Beacon Hill’s diversity has survived its relatively recent gentrification, but visitors can still experience the neighborhood’s myriad pasts inside its opulent mansions and humble schoolhouses, and along its enchanting cobblestone streets.

Black Heritage Trail

By and large the Paul Reveres and John Adam’s of this world have monopolized Bostonians’ collective understanding of their city’s history. As a refreshing counterpoint, the Black Heritage Trail posits that black Bostonians, through their long-marginalized histories, have played an indispensable role in the city’s development. The trail illustrates this point at every turn, taking visitors past the homes, businesses, and schools of some of Boston’s most influential black Americans. Tours leave from the Shaw Memorial at 10am, noon and 2pm (Memorial Day to Labor Day).

Note: Massachusetts State House is situated on the Freedom Trail (see Massachusetts State House)

PhotoWalks

My wife and I took a photo tour of Beacon Hill and the Back Bay with PhotoWalks, a tour specialising in providing the history of the area and also tips and ideas on how to photograph unusual and iconic images of Boston. The tour was superb and possibly the best tour we have ever taken on all our globetrotting holidays. Saba Alhadi, the tour guide, was a superb tourguide, her passion for Boston and photography was immediately infectious and fired our love of this wonderful city and photography as an artform. I can highly recommend this tour for inclusion in your guidebooks, it is little known and I we only came across the tour by accident on surfing the internet for information about Boston. I assure you that all those who undertake a tour of Boston, there are 5 tours on offer, will have a wondefully satisfying, informative, relaxing and stimulating few hours with Saba. Her website is www.photowalks.com

Many thanks Paul Cuddeford