Every trip needs one gentler day, and our last day in Boston turned out to be exactly that, though not entirely by choice. Here’s how our final day in the city unfolded.

Breakfast You Can Literally Sign

We kicked things off at a wonderful Middle Eastern breakfast spot, and it delivered. We got baklava-style pancakes (yes, that’s as good as it sounds), a za’atar egg bowl, and a rich cardamom Turkish coffee. Everything was delicious.

The best part: this restaurant lets customers write and draw on the walls, turning the whole place into an ever-growing mural of visitors’ names and doodles. Ariela, naturally, seized the opportunity and proudly painted her name on the wall for posterity. She is now, technically, part of the establishment’s permanent art collection. A career highlight at her age.

Unfortunately, Sarah wasn’t feeling well and needed to go to urgent care to get checked out. While she was being treated, Eitan and Ariela set out to explore the city at a deliberately slow, low-key pace, the plan being to not do too much of the good stuff without Sarah. So this became a father-daughter wander through Boston’s waterfront, taking it easy.

Quincy Market: A Hallway of Chowder

We started at Quincy Market, a historic marketplace right behind Faneuil Hall. A little history: the market opened in 1826 and was named after Mayor Josiah Quincy, who got the whole thing built without raising taxes or taking on debt, which honestly might make him the most impressive politician in this entire blog series. Today its long central hall is essentially a corridor of food stalls, heavily weighted toward clam chowder and other seafood, with the occasional gelato counter thrown in for balance.

Despite having eaten a full breakfast approximately one hour earlier, Ariela declared herself hungry and selected a cheese bureka. Children operate on their own mysterious fuel schedule, and questioning it is futile.

Then came one of Ariela’s favorite travel rituals: stopping to browse the brochure racks. She loves collecting and studying tourist brochures with the seriousness of a museum curator, so we let her curate.

Slime, Candy, and Other Serious Business

We wandered on and stumbled into a slime store, where you can pay a genuinely startling amount of money to create your own slime. We passed on making one, but they had plenty of samples to squish, poke, and play with, which kept a certain someone thoroughly entertained for free.

Next, a strategic stop at a candy store to stock up on sugar treats. You know, for energy. For the day. Purely medicinal.

We passed through the New England Aquarium, though mostly for a well-timed bathroom break before our boat ride. They had a few exhibits outside the main building for Ariela to enjoy, but we didn’t have time to go inside. The aquarium is famous for its four-story Giant Ocean Tank in the center, a 200,000-gallon cylindrical reef teeming with sharks, sea turtles, and hundreds of fish, so it’s worth a proper visit if you have the time we didn’t.

The Harbor Cruise: A Boston Letdown (Sorry)

We bought tickets for a harbor cruise, something we love doing in almost every coastal city we visit. You get a relaxing two-hour ride while soaking up the city’s history from the water. We’ve done this in San Diego, Seattle, Miami, and now Boston.

And here’s my honest review: for such a deeply historical city, Boston’s harbor cruise underwhelmed. The views of the skyline are lovely, sure, and we did pass a mirrored glass building where we snapped a very cool boat selfie in the reflection. But once you leave the immediate harbor area, the entertainment drops off a cliff.

The unexpected highlight? Watching two planes land simultaneously on the parallel runways at Boston Logan Airport. Ariela became completely absorbed in trying to capture the perfect shot of the synchronized landings, and I’m proud to report she nailed a couple of great ones. Future aviation photographer in the making.

We cruised past the port’s container cranes, the low-profile kind, and our guide shared a fun bit of lore: that these cranes supposedly inspired George Lucas to create the AT-AT walkers in Star Wars. It’s a beloved story told in port cities everywhere (Oakland claims it hardest), though I’ll be a responsible narrator and mention that Lucas himself has flatly called it a myth. Still, once you’ve seen a container crane, you cannot unsee the AT-AT. The resemblance is real even if the origin story isn’t.

We also passed a cool old Nantucket lightship, a floating lighthouse used to mark dangerous waters in places where building an actual lighthouse wasn’t possible. These ships were essentially anchored lighthouses with crews aboard, holding position through storms so passing vessels could navigate safely. Genuinely clever maritime engineering.

And finally, we got a great view of the USS Constitution from the water, along with the other historic ships at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Seeing Old Ironsides from the harbor, the way she was meant to be seen, was a nice payoff.

We also saw a firefighting ship!!

Sarah was waiting for us at the dock when we arrived! everybody was happy to be reunited!

Seaport: Modern Boston and a Criminally Small Burger

Back on land, we strolled along Rowes Wharf toward the South Boston Waterfront, better known as the Seaport District. This area is a striking contrast to the colonial cobblestones of the Freedom Trail: sleek, modern, and packed with glassy commercial buildings.

Fun fact: the Seaport is one of the fastest-developing neighborhoods in the entire country, built up so recently and rapidly on former industrial and parking land that locals sometimes call it the “Innovation District.”

We found a fantastic brewery called Trillium, which served up an outstanding Haze IPA, Eitan’s favorite type of beer. It also served a $16 hamburger so small that a mouse would have finished it and asked for the manager. I’m not exaggerating when I say that burger was a war crime. Beautiful beer, tragic patty. You win some, you lose some.

We wandered the neighborhood admiring the cool public art on the buildings and gawking at the absurd super-yachts parked in the marina.

Then we stumbled onto a free outdoor yoga class, which Ariela immediately decided to join. Watching a small child earnestly attempt downward dog and warrior pose among a crowd of serious adult yogis was the comedic highlight of the day. Namaste, tiny human.

The Underground Bus Plot Twist

On the way back, we finally caved and took the metro, only to encounter something neither of us had ever seen: the “underground metro” wasn’t a train at all. It was a bus, driving through its own dedicated underground tunnel. We later learned this is Boston’s Silver Line, a bus rapid transit route that runs partly through subterranean tunnels like a train would. Clever, efficient, and deeply disorienting the first time you experience it. We rode along quietly questioning everything we thought we knew about subways.

Bonus Rant of the Day: The Cilantro Shampoo

Our hotel stocked cilantro-scented shampoo. I need someone to explain the thought process here. Who signed off on this? Cilantro is a fine herb for tacos, but nobody in the history of humanity has ever walked past a person and thought, “Wow, they smell wonderfully of cilantro, I must compliment them.” You do not want to smell like a garnish. You do not want your hair to evoke salsa. It’s a baffling choice, and I remain personally offended on behalf of my scalp.

Rant over. And with that, our Boston chapter came to a close. Onward to the rest of New England.