In all the years I've visited Boston, I never once traipsed along the cobbled streets of Beacon Hill. Having explored it's remarkable historic charm today, it seems very strange to me that I always missed it. For it is precisely the type of neighborhood I love the most-
a maze atop a hill filled with tiny lanes that squeeze in between large, elegant townhouses, houses that bear the mark of the previous century and the one before that, where the very streets lined with gas lamps and wrought-iron fences harken back to a different age.
After I took a tour of the Harrison Gray Otis House located on Cambridge Street, the kind docent provided me with valuable directions to lead me through the neighborhood, though I quickly found myself meandering on my own path. Measuring only a half-mile square, it is a very small but mesmerizing oasis from the rest of the urban city life. Though of course it is distinctively American, Beacon Hill reminded me of taking tours through quiet, confident European villages or neighborhoods, places that have the support of long history on their side as well as sophisticated design. One can escape within its enchantment and December is a perfect time of the year to do so, as you may have noticed from the photographs I took.
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