Cannolis play important roles in cinema (leave the gun, take the cannoli), and they also played an important part of our adventure in Boston. Sarah and I heard that there were two main cannoli joints in Boston – on the very same street – and both vie for the title of the best cannolis in Boston. It was our goal to personally decide which one deserved the title.
Before we could get there, however, we started by going back in time.
We started our day with an early crypt tour of The Old North Church. Yes, that’s correct. A crypt tour.
I always hope that I’ll find one of two things on these New England historic adventures: 1) Templar Treasure or 2) Nicholas Cage. So far, I’ve struck out on both accounts.
The tour began outside of the church, before they led us into the crypts through these small red doors.
This is a solid representation of what the crypts look like throughout the main section.
There is a newer section that folks are able to be laid to rest in, which is extremely modern. This however, is the historic section of the crypt.
Some of the tombs had tombstones of sorts covering them.
Fun fact: Because burial practices were not quite advanced back in the day, the Church eventually had an incredibly terrible stench emanating from it due to the bodies decaying below it. The Church was even once told by the City of Boston to shut down its burial services because the smell of the crypt was so god awful, and the Church said thanks for the advice we will continue to reek of death, thank you. And then they did and the City never did anything about it.
Lovely.
They had one crypt open with a display that showed the sizes of the coffins, as well as a photo of how multiple coffins would have been arranged in one tomb.
While on my search for Templar treasure, I saw a little symbol on a pipe that I have convinced myself is a Free Mason symbol.
If you know what this symbol is, please don’t tell me, let me live in my National-Treasure-land.
After a fascinating tour of the crypt, we reemerged to check out the main level of the Church.
It was a beautiful church, and I wonder what it would have looked like in its early days.
Something unique about this church is its box pews. Back in the day, members of The Old North Church got their own special little pew boxes with walls, which they could decorate with wallpaper and carpet and whatever they wanted, so that’s moderately adorable of them.
Since they could decorate these boxes however they’d like, many families would put up carpeting or colorful materials to spruce up the place.
Instead of walking into a church full of white pews, it would have been far more colorful, which would be interesting to see.
And at the front of the church is the window through which the gentleman who lit the infamous lanterns on behalf of Paul Revere apparently escaped to avoid capture by British soldiers. Huzzah!
This pew was purchased by Paul Revere’s son, and is still owned by his ancestors. How wild to be able to say you’re a descendant of Paul Revere. Are lamps your whole personality? Do you look yourself in the mirror every morning and say “one if by land, two if by sea?” If I were a descendant of Paul Revere, I would be extremely obnoxious about it.
Also at the front of the church was a bust of George Washington, which was approximately the 7,842 depiction I’d seen of Washington at that point during our trip, which led me to loudly say, “God, another George Washington sculpture? Do we have to put him everywhere?” and then I turned around and saw a plaque with a beautiful quote from Lafayette about how this specific bust was the most accurate depiction of his good friend George and how it made him both happy and sad to see his face again. So that made me feel kind of like an asshole, and I apologized to the bust and the ghosts of Washington and Lafayette.
We continued our Paul Revere theme of the day by heading to the home of the man himself.
We weren’t allowed to take photos inside, so here’s another photo of the exterior.
It was interesting to walk through such an old home, and to feel how the floorboards and structure of the home has survived and warped throughout time. I’ll be honest, we didn’t spend much time here for two reasons: 1) It was generally a quick tour and not an extremely large home 2) There was a large group of shouting children on a field trip, and we wanted to escape that very quickly.
I’d say this is something to check out if you have extra time, but not necessarily a must-see site.
By this time, we were hungry, so before setting out on our cannoli adventure, we decided to grab a slice of pizza. We read online that there are two great pizza joints in Boston, and after trying this one, I disagree. We were told that Regina Pizzeria and Galleria Umberto Rosticceria had the best pizza, and since the latter was close to our cannolis, we went there.
I feel bad saying that the pizza wasn’t great, because the people who helped me were so incredibly kind.
They had really nice vibes. The pizza was super cheap, but it also tasted like any crappy slice of pizza I’ve ever had. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t phenomenal.
I watched these older Italian ladies walk around with a mysterious item on their plate, so when I ordered, I asked if I could have whatever they were having, and I got this mystery item.
I still don’t know exactly what it was, but I enjoyed it more than the pizza.
It may not look tempting, but it was essentially a cheesy mixture of beef and peas surrounded by a layer of mozzarella, surrounded by a layer of rice, and then breaded and cooked. Pretty good.
After eating our mediocre pizza, we were finally ready for cannolis.
First up, Mike’s Pastry.
The interior was super cute!
When you made your order, they placed it in cute white boxes and tied them up with string. Bless their hearts.
Next was Modern Pastry.
We agreed that it would be wrong to walk in with a Mike’s Pastry box, so Sarah stayed outside while I went in to order. Our plan was to order classic cannolis from both places, so that when we tried each of them, we had a fair testing sample.
So I went in and ordered their classic cannoli, with no extra anything, and the lady looked genuinely mad at me. I panicked and added pistachios to it, because I felt like she was going to spit in my face if I didn’t add something to it.
Overall, everyone in Modern Pastry seemed like they hated their lives, and the vibes were much better at Mike’s Pastry.
We went back to our hotel and cut up the cannolis, ready to determine which was the best in Boston.
We started with Mike’s Pastry and it was perfect.
I’ll note that we ate the classic cannoli first so that we could compare it to Modern Pastry’s, and then we tried the chocolate cannoli afterward, just to keep things fair.
The shell of this cannoli was perfect, and the filling was incredible. For me, Mike’s Pastry was the clear winner. The filling was SO good, and had great flavor and texture. The shell-to-filling ratio was perfect and for the same price, the cannoli was like twice the size of Modern Pastry’s. They also have a trillion flavors to choose from and the employees were much nicer.
Sarah (wrongly) thought that Modern Pastry’s was better, because she liked that there was less filling, and she thought the shell was better.
In either case, we devoured all three cannolis.
And felt mildly sick afterward.
I took a much-deserved nap afterward.
After a brief respite, we decided to continue on the Freedom Trail. We picked things up at the U.S.S. Constitution Museum, which was really cool. Would recommend.
The museum itself was fine – I would suggest watching the short film they have to get history about the ship, and then quickly perusing the museum before heading to the ship itself. The museum felt more geared toward children, so it may be better for you if you have kiddos to entertain.
The U.S.S. Constitution, so creatively named by George Washington, is actually the world’s oldest warship still afloat.
That’s pretty crazy to think about.
The U.S.S. Constitution was one of the six original Navy ships built and launched in 1797
In fact, the Navy still mans the ship, which I can personally confirm after I descended the stairs to the bottom of the ship, almost bumped my head on the incredibly short ceilings, and shouted up to Sarah still at the top of the ship, “This place is not for tall people!” before noticing THE NAVY sitting in hammocks laughing at me. Cool cool cool.
Damn, looks like I’m an 1812 sailor.
The ship was actually pretty awesome, and it was mind-boggling to be aboard something as historic and well-preserved as the USS Constitution. Would recommend visiting!
After our tour around the ship, we were ready to hit the trial again.
One thing I appreciated about the Freedom Trail was this brick line that connects the stops along the trail – you could literally follow this all day without a map and be taken from one cool historic site to another.
Our next stop was the Battle of Bunker Hill Monument, which has a museum right across the street.
We started at the museum, and some some pretty cool artifacts, like this British soldier’s drum from the battle.
They also had these cannonballs from the battle. So crazy to think of the history they were part of.
Next, we were ready to take a look at the monument itself.
Obviously not as cool as the Washington Monument, but I felt like the history on the land here was much more palpable.
Our final escapade on the trip was a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum.
The center garden was gorgeous – I could have stared at it forever.
Look at that light.
Ok, one more.
Stunning.
Aside from the gorgeous gardens here, I can’t lie, the energy in the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum was weird and unsettling.
And I don’t think it was due to it’s history. At least, not it’s notorious history.
“This is a robbery.”
In 1990, two men dressed in police uniforms entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, announced they were robbing the museum, and tied up the two security guards on duty. They stole 13 pieces of art in 81 minutes, resulting in the largest property theft in the world. They simultaneously stole some of the most valuable art in the museum, as well as a few odd choices.
One piece stolen was the only painting taken from the room, on a completely different end of the museum than the rest of the stolen pieces. Why choose that one? Why travel out of your way when in a hurry to get in and get out?
They stole several Degas drawings from this really cool display set up on movable doors.
The most valuable works stolen were cut from their frames – Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, and Vermeer’s The Concert.
Despite controversy over what happened that night, who stole the art, and if the security guards were in on it, the mystery has never been solved and the art has never been recovered. A $10 million dollar reward stands for leads that could result in the return of the art, and the empty frames still hang on the walls.
I don’t think this is what I was picking up on, though. The museum had the strangest dark vibes to it – an odd energy that I couldn’t quite place, but which made me unsettled while visiting.
This may sound strange, but I almost feel like it was Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. Throughout the museum, there were portraits of her scattered here and there, and it was almost like I could feel them when I walked into the room. I don’t have any photos of then, because I could hardly bring myself to look at them while visiting – it felt like the energy I was detecting radiated from them. I don’t know how to explain it in any other way than that, and I searched the internet to see if anyone had similar experiences, and found nothing.
Nevertheless, it was one of the most interesting museum experiences I’ve had.
Isabella Stewart Gardner curated the museum in a very particular, well-thought out fashion, and walking through it felt like walking through her mind.
Every new room was a new discovery, interesting in all the little nuances. I would definitely recommend visiting.
One of my favorite pieces was this one, which almost looked like a blank back canvas, but really depicted a foggy, dark seascape when you look close enough at it.
I also liked all of the angles of the center garden.
And with that, we nearly wrapped up our trip!
It was only the next morning that we realized we almost missed out on an essential component of any good trip to Boston, so before our flight, we high-tailed it back to Mike’s Pastry.
How could we leave Boston without enjoying a slice of Boston Cream Pie?
We carried our desserts to the Boston Harbor, where we enjoyed them on the water. And let me tell you – they were insanely delicious. Please go get yourself a slice from Mike’s Pastry if you ever visit Boston.
And with that, our Boston trip came to a close!
Stick around for more adventures ahead!
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