Finally in Salem, I still had some time before my tour started, so I went to visit a few interesting places in town first, including the Ropes Mansion, which has a beautiful garden, and a monument on Essex and Washington Streets dedicated to the witch of the famous TV show
"Bewitched", Elizabeth Montgomery.
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| Fountain outside Public Library |
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"Bewitched" Statue,
Washington Street and Essex Street |
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Monument,
Essex Street and Boston Street |
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| Salem Downtown |
I then decided to grab a little brunch in town, heading to the
Gulu Gulu Cafe for some hot chocolate, and two crepes, one being the Berry Nice Crepe, filled with blueberries and strawberries and topped with yogurt and honey, and the Portabella Mushroom, Spinach and Basil Crepe containing cheddar cheese.
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| Hot Chocolate |
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| Berry Nice Crepe |
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| Portabella Mushroom, Spinach and Basil Crepe |
The fruity crepe was delicious, while the other one was a little too strong in terms of its basil taste for my liking. Feeling full, I continued my sightseeing until it was time for me to head to where my Segway tour was to start.
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| Outside Museum Place Mall |
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Roger Conant Statue,
Washington Square and Brown Street |
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Town Common,
Washington Square and South Washington Square |
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Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Hawthorne Boulevard and Charter Street |
Finally it was time for my first Segway experience. The place is actually hard to find, being on the side of a building, but thankfully I was actually early. When everyone finally arrived, I was taught how to use the Segway, and as it turned out, it was actually really easy to use, pretty much like riding a snowboard with an delicate sense of balance, and soon I was zipping along the roads on it with the rest.
We first headed to the
Salem Maritime National Historic Site, where I learned how Salem was a thriving maritime trading city at one point in time. Unfortunately, the
Friendship of Salem, a historical trading ship usually docked at Derby Wharf here, was out for repairs.
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| Derby Wharf |
Other places we visited were the Town Common, where I learned about the first elephant in America being a drunk one, called the Stoned Elephant of Salem because its owners fed it beer and it got addicted to it. We also visited the old Salem Jailhouse at 50 St. Peter Street, which has now been converted into a restaurant.
The last place we visited was the
Witch Trials Memorial, located at the end of Liberty Street. This simple memorial is made up of 20 stone benches, with the name of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials on each one.
With that, the Segway tour ended. I decided to start visiting the various museums in the area, starting with the
New England Pirate Museum, where I bought combination tickets with another two museums in the area, namely the
Witch Dungeon Museum and the
Witch History Museum. This museum, which gives tours every half hour talks about the pirates that roamed the seas off Salem's coast during the time of the witch trials. Pictures of the exhibits in this small museum follow.
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| Pirates Gambling |
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| Ed Low's Pirate Flag |
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| Sharing the Booty |
Given that I had some time before the next tour at the Witch History Museum, I decided to go to other museums in the area. The first place I went to was the
Count Orlok's Nightmare Gallery, which showcases the various monsters that have appeared in films over the years. It was interesting to see murderers like from the
Halloween,
Friday the 13th and
Nightmare on Elm Street series, as well as monsters and witches from
The Witches and
Pumpkinhead. Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed, but I had an interesting time here, trying to figure out which movies some of the wax figures originated from, although I did take a picture of the skeleton outside the museum.
Next, I headed to the
Salem Wax Museum, where I bought another combination ticket with the
Salem Witch Village right next door. The exhibits in this small museum were of various scenes in Salem's history, including the witch trials, hanging of pirates and famous people in Salem's history. Pictures follow.
I headed to the Salem Witch Village next, where it was just about time for the next tour.
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| Shop at Salem Witch Village |
This museum looks more closely at the history of witches and popular myths about them. It was interesting to learn about how witches were actually countryside practitioners practising pagan beliefs, using natural ingredients for their cures, which religious doctors were against and hence demonized such pagan doctors as witches conjuring up potions, persecuting them while taking the recipes for the traditional cures to be used for their own purposes. Witches flying on brooms also originated from a tradition by pagans to jump with their crop sweeping brooms, sometimes between their legs, to try to show their crops how high to grow. I t was also interesting to know that dragons, unlike the fire breathing monsters depicted in movies, were actually guardians of the people, and it was good luck to rub their bellies. Modern witches do exist as well, although they have a code never to do harm to others, and "warlock" is actually a derogatory term in the witch world which means "traitor".
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| Giles Corey Being Crushed to Death |
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| Modern Witches |
Next, I headed to the Witch History Museum, which showcases the story behind the Salem Witch Trials. Unfortunately, I was unable to take any good pictures here. Next, I still had some time before having to go to the Witch Dungeon Museum, so I decided to walk around the area instead and take pictures of the buildings there.
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| Witch Dungeon Museum |
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| Superior Court Buildings |
With that, I headed into the Witch Dungeon Museum for the next tour. Here, there was first a live performance of a court scene during the trial of Elizabeth Proctor during the Witch Hysteria in 1692.
Next, we headed downstairs to view exhibits of the dungeons used to house the victims of the witch trials, the original ruins of which is located under the 10 Federal Street Building. It was interesting to learn that the prisoners had to pay for the prisons and food they were provided with, with extremely small cells with no sitting room for those who could not afford the rent. Many prisoners died here as a result. Pictures of some of the exhibits here follow.
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| Giles Corey Getting Crushed to death |
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| Prisoners |
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| Hand Shackles |
After I was done with this tour, I realized that I had no more time to visit the Salem Witch Museum or the
Peabody Essex Museum, which were the larger and better museums in town in my opinion, so I decided to spend the rest of my day seeing the sights in town. Pictures of the places I saw before heading for dinner at Finz Seafood Restaurant
Pickering Wharf area follow, including revisting the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, this time walking all the way along Derby Wharf out to the
Derby Wharf Lighthouse.
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| Old Firehouse, 30 Church Street |
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Old Daniel Low and Co Building,
231 Essex Street |
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| Salem Maritime National Historic Site |
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| Central Wharf from Derby Wharf |
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| Views from Derby Wharf |
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| Derby Wharf Light |
From Derby Wharf, I headed to Pickering Wharf nearby, where I decided to make reservations for dinner at Finz before going elsewhere to sightsee till the sun went down.
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| Finz mascot outside restaurant |
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| Nice Boat at Pickering Wharf |
Some places I visited after my trip to the wharfs included the
Salem State University,
Palmer Cove Park, where there are beautiful views of the yachts anchored here, and there is a nice beach at the
Forest River Park as well.
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Old St. Joseph's Church,
124 Lafayette Street |
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Memorial,
Norman Street and Washington Street |
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Lafayette Park,
Lafayette Street and Washington Street |
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At Palmer Cove Park,
Leavitt Street and Congress Street |
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| At Forest River Park |
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| Bertolon School of Business |
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| Marsh Conference Center |
Salem State University
Finally done with sightseeing for the day, I headed back to Finz for a seafood dinner. I was contemplating getting a steamed lobster, but I decided to go for something less expensive, getting raw littleneck clams and the lobster ravioli, finishing off with a dessert of warm chocolate chip cookie pie.
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| Littleneck clams on the rocks |
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| Lobster Ravioli |
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| Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie |
I must say it was a perfect ending to a great day of exploring the Witch City of Massachusetts.
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