Wandering around the North End

The North End is a great place to just amble around. The other day, we wound up at Puopolo Park on Commercial Street, which is possibly the only park in Boston with public bocce courts (and definitely the only park with a plaque commemorating the Great Molasses Flood). Sometimes, bocce is a game of finesse, where you try to carefully roll your ball as close as possible to the pallina, a small white ball (points go to whoever gets their balls the closest). And sometimes, it's a game of smackdown, as you try to throw your ball as hard as possible to knock your opponent's balls away from the pallina. In either case, liberal use of hand gestures and Italian exclamations are always appropriate.

Puopolo Park sits right on the Inner Harbor. We peered down and saw a fleet of jellyfish slowly moving toward the bay, their bodies opening and closing as they did ghostly somersaults along the rocks below the harbor walk:

Across the street from Puopolo Park, the Copps Hill Burying Ground is one of the oldest cemeteries in the city, and a stop on a Boston death tour. Here, one tour guide highlights the musket holes left by Redcoats who used the tombstone of one early Patriot for target practice:

Early tombstones in Boston are often decorated with flying death's heads. Here lyes buried ye body of Mr. Joseph Snelling:

Look up - you never know what you'll see in the skies over the North End:

Like any good European neighborhood, the North End has plenty of alcoves and alleys and mysterious passages. On North Bennet Street, one narrow passageway opens into a small courtyard illuminated by a gaslight lamp:

On Hanover Street, Mike's might have more customers (on our stroll, it seemed like every single tourist was carrying a Mike's takeout box), but the Modern has the better sign:

Sunset seen from Hanover Street:

North End links.