Viking Cruises

viking.com | 29 T he British are coming! That's the famous cry once attributed to silversmith Paul Revere, who warned his fellow Americans of the red coats' approach in 1775. But this time the British – or, at least, my wife Mandy and I – were arriving in Boston in peace, and on board the elegant Viking Sea rather than a warship. Our mission wasn't to quell rebellious colonists but to trace the history of Revere, who made a legendary midnight ride into the countryside to alert the local militia that the enemy forces were on the way. Walking the Freedom Trail, we saw Revere's house and the Old North Church where he ordered two lanterns to be lit as a warning sign that the British were inbound. We visited his grave at the Granary Burying Ground. Other patriots, such as John Hancock and Samuel Adams, are interred there, as well as victims of the Boston Massacre in 1770 when British troops killed five people. And, of course, you can't miss the site of the Boston Tea Party, where campaigners dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbour in a protest against "taxation without representation". Taking advantage of the overnight stay in port on board Viking Sea during our Eastern Seaboard Explorer voyage, Mandy and I also took a train 30 km out to Concord (pronounced "Conquered"), the scene of "the shot heard round the world" when the first British soldiers were killed at the start of the American Revolution. As well as one of Revere's lanterns, the Concord Museum displays muskets, swords, cannon balls and other memorabilia of the war. There are also much more peaceful exhibits, such as the desk of writer Henry D. Thoreau and the study of author Ralph Waldo Emerson. But our main reason to visit the town was to see Orchard House, the home of Little Women writer Louisa May Alcott, which has been wonderfully preserved as she lived there, down to her sewing kit with her name embroidered on it. Walking around the house, we learnt how fact and fiction crossed over in Alcott's life, with her and her sisters remarkably similar to the characters in her best-known book. The joy of our itinerary, with overnights in New York, Boston and Montreal, was the freedom to go off exploring on our own as H I S TO R Y & A R C H I T E C T U R E I S S U E 2 2

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