Following the concert we travelled north for about half an hour to our hotel just outside Williamstown. I should mention at this point that Dougal is on holiday with us so all our hotel had to be dog friendly. We stayed for two nights at the Berkshire Hills Hotel which was friendly and homely if a little twee and had a very cold swimming pool.

This region of Massachusetts is known as the Berkshires and is a popular weekend bolt hole for Bostonians. Historically, rich New Englanders had country estates here so the region screams wealth. It's lush, leafy and very groomed with attractive rolling hills. Our nearest town, Williamstown, is a college town and it turned out our visit coincided with the start of the college term so the town was full of freshmen students and parents. Williamstown is little more than Williams College and a handful of shops and restaurants but it's a stunning little town with lovely buildings and extensive lawns. Our impression was that Williams College was a university for very rich students but there would be many worse places to while away a few years at uni.

From Williamstown we followed a winding road to the summit of Mount Greylock, Massachusetts highest mountain at 3,491 feet or 1,064 m - small by Alps standards but tall enough to allow fantastic views across Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York state and Connecticut. The monument at the summit commemorates Massachusetts armed forces who died in the First World War.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our first US vacation we've headed inland from Boston to the far north west of Massachusetts and then north into Vermont, known as the Green Mountain State. It should be known as the Foody State - if we were living in Vermont for the year Barry and I would return home to Porthcawl about 10 stone heavier each. Every village seems to have at worst a country store with lots of local goodies and in many cases there are whole strips of local produce stores with cheese, maple syrup, ice cream, chocolate and apples being particularly prominent and much too tasty for our own good!

We travelled east to west through Massachusetts on Saturday to the village of Lenox where the Tanglewood Estate hosts the Tanglewood Music Festival each summer. The number of trees lining the roads and covering the hills increased rapidly as we headed west and remained a theme throughout our week's holiday. We had always been rather dubious about the claims of the splendours of the New England fall but having seen the almost uninterrupted covering of trees in almost every direction throughout the region with the green broken very occasionally by the gold or red of a tree just starting to turn I think we are starting to appreciate that the fall leaves will be spectacular and well worth seeing.

Anyway, after having a brief stop in a stationary queue of traffic to allow a tortoise to cross the road (yes really) we arrived at Tanglewood where we had booked tickets for an afternoon family concert featuring a woodwind quintet playing a programme of pieces with a theme of storytelling through music (Flight of the Bumblebee, Carnival of the Animals etc). Tanglewood is said to be one of the premier music festivals in the world and is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The festival features concerts in a variety of music styles and hosts prominent artistes such as James Taylor, Yo Yo Ma and John Williams. John Williams was conducting a concert of his film music in the evening following our afternoon concert but the tickets were all sold out.

What makes the Tanglewood festival so enjoyable is that the two concert venues on the estate (which is huge) are semi-outdoors so the audience can sit either in the hall itself or on the lawn outside. Our concert was in the smaller hall where the back wall had massive doors which opened out into the lawn whilst the main hall is known as the Shed - it has a roof and pillars but no surrounding walls. The whole estate is lush, green and leafy and very beautiful, particularly in the gorgeous sunshine when we were there. Before our concert there were various events laid on for kids including trying out a variety of new instruments. Isabel and Rachel were very tempted to swap to the brass section!

We were all very excited on Monday as we were booked onto a whale watching trip. Dougal had his first day in doggy day care at our local pet shop and we headed to Boston's waterfront to board our boat. It was a beautiful day and we had some stunning views of the Boston skyline as we headed out to sea along with the slightly unnerving experience of sailing directly underneath the airport flight path just a couple of hundred metres from the runway!

It took us about an hour and a half to reach the whale watching destination, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. It's supposed to be one of the best whale watching areas on the east coast of the USA and the tour operators are so confident of seeing some whale action that they promise another trip for free if no whales are sighted. What they don't legislate for is a crew member being taken ill just as the passengers are told to start watching for whales. Yes - we sailed for an hour and a half for the pleasure of turning around and heading straight back to Boston with the number of whales seen standing at zero. Ah well - it was a nice day and a relaxing trip, if somewhat windy (see photos below!) and we were offered a refund or a repeat trip on another day.

So we tried again on Wednesday. Dougal had another day in doggy day care and we sailed off once again into the sunshine towards the horizon. This time we were lucky - after about half an hour of sailing around aimlessly and thinking every slight ripple in the sea was a whale about to surface we saw what we had come for - a humpback whale who was happy to put on a show for us. He was identified by the New England Aquarium expert on board with us as "Mogul" and he hung around for about 20 minutes, surfacing, spouting, breaching and diving under before we had to say our goodbyes and turn towards home. Suffice to say we sailed home rather more satisfied with our day!

 

 

 

 

In between our whale watching efforts we had a night out at the theatre. Boston has a theatre district much like a mini Broadway or West End and it seems to host many major touring Broadway productions. Before the girls and I arrived in Boston Barry booked tickets for us all to see Wicked, which the girls have been desperate to see after learning many of the songs for their singing lessons and listening to the CD in the car over and over (and over) again. So there was much excitement and anticipation on Tuesday evening as we girls put on our glad rags ready for our night out. The show was outstanding and the girls loved every minute of it. Rachel just about restrained herself from singing along and they were both transfixed throughout the show, claiming it was the best show they had ever seen. Isabel spent an enormous amount of her pocket money on a Wicked beach towel which I'm sure shall make several appearances at Rest Bay on our return to Porthcawl.

 

 

We visited Boston's Museum of Science on Friday which is one of the city's major attractions. It has elements of Techniquest and the Natural History Museum along with a Planetarium and IMAX cinema. I think it's fair to say that we only scratched the surface in the few hours that we were there but we decided to buy an annual membership so we shall have plenty of opportunity to explore it properly. The girls enjoyed lying on a bed of nails and creating animation effects as well as tackling a variety of maths problems (Barry's favourite bit) and eating astronaut ice cream. As Arnie would say, "we'll be back".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry it's been so long since you last heard from us. We're in the midst of Barry's two weeks leave between finishing his Havard course and starting at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and we've been sooooooooooooo busy having fun there's been no time to write!!

I'm writing today from our cabin in the woods in Vermont and we've got loads to tell you. I'm sure I won't get through it all on this sitting so it may take a few blog entries to bring you up to date. So, here we go ...

Starting on Saturday August 17th:
Barry's first day off. He'd been desperate for an adrenaline hit so we booked ourselves onto a speedboat trip around Boston harbour. However, it was a speedboat trip with a difference, riding on a mutant codfish named Codzilla created by a chemical accident on one of the harbour islands ... Needless to say, we got very wet and as the Bostonians say, it was WICKED AWESOME!!

 

 

 

On Sunday we went to the Skywalk Observatory at the top of the Prudential Tower, the second tallest building in Boston. It's in the Copley area of Boston (where the Boston marathon ends and thus where the bomb went off earlier this year) and the Observatory offers 360 degree views around Boston and its environs as well as many displays outlining the history of Boston, particularly immigration. We had great views to the west across the harbour to the island; to the north across the Charles River to Cambridge, Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); to the south to South Boston and to the west to Fenway, Fenway Park (Red Sox ball park), Brookline (our suburb) and a beautiful open square which we had not seen before but which we identified as the Christian Science Square. We went down to the square afterwards having fitted in the obligatory ice cream first) and had a wander round. There was a huge Christian Science temple in one corner with a large, shallow infinity pool in the centre and a few dodgy, oriental-style statues at one end. It was wonderfully calm and peaceful and is one of my favourite parts of Boston so far.

 

 

Here are some photos of the Freedom Trail, with Dougal leading the way!

 

 

The gold-domed building is the State House, the seat of the Massachusetts State Government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A typical Bostonian!

 

 

 

Boston Common: once upon a time cows walked across the Common on their way to market. Nowadays it's mostly Bostonians and tourists.

 

 

 

Paul Revere is a hero to Bostonians for his middle of the night horseback dash to warn the American soldiers of the advancing Brits.

 

 

Samual Adams, early politician and, perhaps more importantly, legendary brewer, is one of many prominent Bostonians who have their grave in the Old Burying Ground.

 

 

The Old State House, historically the seat of the Governor appointed by the British to rule this colonial region. The Governor would sit in his office high in the building with a view out to the harbour so he could see all the comings and goings.