When The Going Was Good

Abroad, I am an enthusiastic and unabashed tourist, possessing a limitless appetite for those ancient and inimitable sites habitually name-checked in the historical narratives of the biography of planet Earth. Yet there exists a certain species of traveler who maintains an abhorrence of conventional sightseeing that borders on the pathological: I only want to go where the locals go, they whine, to see how the real people live. Very well. Fine by me. You can spend your entire vacation in hospital being treated for cholera and malnutrition if that’s what you want. Takes all sorts to make a world, I suppose. Personally, I’m off to see the Roman ruins and then I’m going to fling a few coins in the glorious fountain. I’ll be picking up the tab at Ristorante Delicioso while you’re picking the fleas out your hair in some rat-infested backstreet slum. Suits me. Guess I’ll see you back at the hotel in a week’s time then. Arrivederci Killjoy.
Mind you, there is a particular sphere of sightseeing based tourism that leaves me colder than a British Airways in-flight chicken dinner (Economy Class). I refer, of course, to the sit-and-gawp guided bus tour, or the decrepit Olde Towne Trolley Tour that every American city seems to offer nowadays. Really. People might just as well stay at home and watch it all on video. In Boston we herd our visitors like sunburned, ‘Cheers Bar’ souvenir-laden cattle onto the so-called “Duck Tours.” During these brief but expensive excursions conducted via road and river, lazy tourists conserve whatever energy their obese bodies contain for pillaging the shopping malls by boarding amphibious vehicles that lurch around the city streets before finally flopping into the Charles for a quick motorized paddle through the polluted water. Meanwhile, the maniacal driver has been undergoing some hideous mutation from unctuous tour guide to full-throttle, fez wearing performing monkey, encouraging his rictus-grinned passengers to scream “quack, quack” at innocent passers-by.
I don’t know. If you are planning on taking a trip to Boston, might I suggest the John Singer Sargent murals at the Public Library, or the mothballed Harvard Museum of Natural History, neither of which are accessible by Duck.

Comments

[Fcb]

In Boston you also have that Green Footprint trail that walks you past Franklin's grave, the Civil War memorial in the Common, down to the bars and fish joints at the.. at the... wossname? Down by the hahbah, anyway. With the Holocaust Memorial that looks like a bus stop? The letter "O" is knocking at my head? Hate when that happens.

Anyway: That's a lovely walk for a tourist on a fine summer day.

[Fcb]

Not "O", "Q": Quincy Mahkit.

[stephenesque]

Yes. My point exactly - a lovely walk! Mind you, I would run from Quincy Market like I'd run from a tidal wave of boiling molasses, if I were you. It's nothing but an outdoor mall these days, unfortunately, with all the same shops you see everywhere else.

[DarkoV]

Rather than being carried about by a Duck, is it possible that Harvard students, seeking summer employment, are available to carry me on their backs, while my family tours Boston. Now that would be delightful.

[Amy]

A quintessential Boston tour, available without ever leaving the comfort of your desk chair... The Gallery of MIT Hacks

Better than a duck tour... Make Way for Cruftlings

[stephenesque]

Amy, I didn't know about this. Very funny. Thanks!

[Amy]

Shoowah.