After spending a great Thanksgiving with my friends in New York City, I had to come back home yesterday to do some work, so today was sightseeing day once more. Today was all about the town of Waltham, with
Brandeis University being the first place I visited. The University has a nice campus, with a few interesting structures including the Usen Castle, which I definitely did not expect to see in the middle of an otherwise modern-looking university. Pictures follow.
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| Squire Bridge |
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| Shapiro Athletic Center |
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| Marcus Field |
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| Carl J. Shapiro Science Center |
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| Bethlehem Chapel |
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| Mandel Center for the Humanities |
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| Monument outside Berlin Chapel |
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| Usen Castle |
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| Views from Spingold Theater Center |
Before going to the town common next to
City Hall, I visited a few other places, including the
Watch Factory, an architectural beauty from Industrial Revolution Times.
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Old South Middle School,
510 Moody Street |
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| The Watch Factory |
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| Ezra C Fitch School, 14 Ash Street |
The town common area beside City Hall was quite beautiful with its monuments and all.
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| Monuments at the Town Common |
The next place I went to was the
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation. This is a quaint little museum found alongside the Charles River at the back of the old Francis Cabot Lowell Mill at 190 Moody Street. Instead of parking at the parking complex across the river and crossing over to
Landry Park to head to the museum, I decided to park at the Mill instead in a 2 hour parking spot, which is currently a private residence of apartments. Before entering the museum, I decided to take a few pictures of the Charles River from this area, especially from the bridge on Moody Street.
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| The Charles River at Moody Street |
The museum itself had many interesting historical exhibits, including watches made at the Watch Factory, old cars during the industrial revolution, multi-pedal bicycles, and even artistic creations of a genre referred to as
steampunk.
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| The Francis Cabot Lowell Mill |
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| Entrance into the Museum |
Steampunk creations
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| Steampunk fashion |
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| Old gas pump |
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| Model trains |
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| Power Loom |
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| Steam-powered fire engine |
At the end of my visit, I decided to buy a nice looking pocket watch from the gift shop. Maybe I shall use it in a Yankee Swap event in the near future.
It was time for more sightseeing in the town before lunch.
I decided to try something different for lunch today: Ugandan cuisine at the
Karibu Restaurant, and it was as delicious as any other high class meal I would otherwise had eaten. I definitely recommend eating here if you happen to be in the area.
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| Inside the Restaurant |
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Spinach, Mattoke (mashed plantains)
and bean-and-peanut sauce |
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| Beef Stew |
Finally, it was time to head back to the Waltham Museum, which only opens at 1pm on Saturday. This museum is essentially about the history of the city, and the caretaker actually took the time to show me around the place, talking about the native Americans that used to live there, the invention of things like chalk, kerosene and microwave ovens here, and the booming bicycle and watch industries here in times gone by. It was also interesting to know that the puppeteer for
Sesame Street's Big Bird was born in this town as well. Unfortunately, it was precisely because of his helpfulness that the time on my parking lot ran out on me, and I got a $25 ticket 10 minutes before I finally arrived at my car. Pictures of the various exhibits follow.
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| What Indian tools?? Those are rocks |
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| Invention of chalk |
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| Kerosene lamps |
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| Big Bird puppeteer |
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| Old classroom table |
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| Old microwave |
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| Military exhibit |
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| More clock faces |
My only hike of the day was at
Prospect Hill Park. The rough route I took is highlighted below in pink. There was a map of the trails posted at the trailhead situated on 314 Totten Pond Road, but I could not seem to find any online except at this website
http://old.whysheep.com/dvb/phill.html, and even then it was not really complete.
From the parking area, I headed up the road as the gate was closed to traffic for the season, and turned left into the woods at the sight of the Boy Scout's lean-to shown below to take a shortcut up to the top of Big Prospect, passing by two big water towers.
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| Boy Scout Lean to |
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| Water Towers |
At the top, there was a radio tower, and a pavilion on the other side. There were no good views at the foot of the radio tower, and there was a family barbecuing at the pavillion, so I had to ask their permission to take a picture of the view of the Cambridge Reservoir.
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| Cambridge Reservoir |
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| Radio Tower |
From here, I tried to walk along the Ridge Trail to try to get to Little Prospect Hill, but I ended up in the residential area on Prospect Hill Road instead. Thankfully, there were a couple of runners coming my way, and they showed me the way back to the trails, and even directed me to a trail leading up to Little Prospect Hill. There were three vantage points from here to the top where there were great views of the Boston skyline as well as downtown Waltham. Pictures taken from these viewpoints follow.
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| Boston Skyline |
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| Downtown Waltham |
From the top of Little Prospect Hill, I decided to take the easy way out and head back to my car using the road. Even so, it was a pretty long walk, and I pretty much spent a total of 1.5 hours trekking in this area.
Although it was starting to get dark already, I decided to take my chances and visit a few more places, finally ending it at the Beaver Brook Reservation on the Waltham side at the junction of Waverley Oaks Road and Shirley Road, where there is a playing field and there were many people walking their dogs.
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| Beaver Brook Reservation |
With that, I decided to head for dinner in town. My colleague had recommended
Solea Restaurant, a tapas bar, so I decided to go check it out. I was not disappointed at all. The place had nice decor and romantic lighting, and the 3 tapas plates were excellent, although the seafood ceviche was a bit too sour for my taste. I thought that I would be able to have 6 tapas plates, but the waitress was right that I could only handle 3.
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| Seafood Ceviche |
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| Bread and Butter |
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Chicken Livers Sauted with Bacon and Red Onion (left)
Lamb Meatballs in Truffle Cream Sauce (Right) |
With that, my wonderful dinner ended my day in Waltham. There were still other places in Waltham I had yet to visit, but that would have to wait till tomorrow.
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