April 6th 2014: A Short Tour of Cambridge, Then Hiking in Southern Central Massachusetts

On the second day of showing my friends around the Boston area, we first headed to Veggie Galaxy in the city of Cambridge for breakfast. I got the Harvard Square Burger the last time I was here, which is exactly what my friend got.

I got the Inman Square (Pickled Carrot, Basil, Sun Dried Tomato Pesto, Russian Dressing) Burger this time around,

while my other friend got the River Street Omelet (Roasted Eggplant, Caramelized Onion, Tomato Puree, Herbed Ricotta Cheese, Tarragon Basil Pesto) along with a Grilled Blueberry Muffin.

Once again, the vegetarian food didn't fail to impress me, and everyone gobbled up their food in no time.

After breakfast, I happened to remember that Toscanini's was nearby, so I decided to take my friends to try one of the best ice cream places in town. After sampling a few flavors, they decided to go with the Goat Cheese and Brownie flavor, which was pretty good.

From here, it was on to the MIT Museum. Since the last time I was here, most of the exhibitions had not changed at all, although I think these were different this time around.

At this point, my friends were tired of walking, so I drove them by the main buildings of MIT, then drove to Harvard, where they decided to check out Harvard Square on foot and touch the shoe of John Harvard, as well as try out some food truck fare from Chicken and Rice Guys. Our last stop of the day was the Harvard Medical School in Boston, at which point my friends decided it was time to head home back to NYC.

After seeing them off back home, I decided to take the opportunity to spend the rest of the daylight hours hiking. I headed to the Douglas State Forest in Douglas first, taking the path highlighted below in pink from ~130 Wallis Street to check out Wallis Pond.

The pond itself was actually pretty nice,

complete with a small waterfall.

Another water body in the area was the Whitin Reservoir.

I headed to Wallum Lake to try to find the beach, choosing to park behind the barrier and walking to it, only to realize that I could have reached it from the boat launch area, which I have visited in the past, by just walking past the barrier here. Not too bad a beach though.

I also tried to find Aldrich Pond, having a little difficulty finding the trail leading to it. The path I took to get to it from the Wallum Lake area is shown below in pink.

The pond itself was nothing much to look at though.

From here, it was on to the town of Sturbridge, where I headed to check out the Westville Lake Recreation Area. Pretty relaxing area by the river, to be sure of that.

I took a short hike at Hobbs Brook Recreation Area as well, although there wasn't much to see here though.

Finally, I decided to call it a day, and headed to Publick House Historic Inn nearby for dinner. This place serves as an inn too (as you can tell from the name), and the eating area was pretty rustic in a wood cabin sort of way. For food, I decided to go with the New England Baked Scrod (cracker crumb topping, lemon-dill sauce, rice pilaf and butternut squash), which came with a soup and dessert for just $8 more. For that, I got the Vegetable Rice Soup, and the Indian Pudding (a New England tradition, a sweet baked pudding, rich with cornmeal, molasses and spices, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream).

The starters themselves were interesting, with different sorts of breads, and even sticky buns.

The soup wasn't too bad, though a little sour as it was tomato based.

The fish was excellent, moist and flaky.

The dessert wasn't to my liking though, having too much spices and cinnamon to it.

Overall, not too bad a meal. With that, my weekend of being a tour guide finally came to an end. Back to work tomorrow.