The Boston Traveler

Today’s guest post is from Mary Jo Manzanares, b5media’s Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
June 2nd, 1692, is generally recognized as the commencing of the Salem Witch Trials.
Hindsight tells us that, despite the rampant hysteria running through the community at the time, none of these people (mostly women) were witches. Fear does crazy things to people.
Salem, rather than denying it, or trying to distance itself from its less tolerant era, has embraced the trials, and has turned witchcraft into a sort of cottage industry.
You can visit the Salem Witch Museum, the Witch Dungeon Museum, the …read more

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Today is a guest post from Mary Jo Mazanares, Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.

One of the non-witchy highlights of a visit to Salem is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables.
The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association was created to assist immigrant families who were settling in Salem. Philanthropist and preservationist Caroline Emmerton purchased “the Old Turner Mansion” in 1908, and eventually restored the mansion to its original splendor — and its seven gables. The building became known as The House of the Seven Gables, after Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel of the same name.
Additional structures …read more

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This is a guest post from Mary Jo Manzanares, b5media’s Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
Where else but Salem would Halloween become a month long event?
The city that has made a cottage industry of witchcraft pulls no punches this Halloween, as it launches its month of Haunted Happenings. It’s a combination of an autumn event, celebrating the changing leaves and cooler weather, with the spirit of Halloween, complete with accompanying ghosts, goblins, witches and folklore.
The Halloween events are all found in historic downtown Salem, and it’s easy to walk from one venue to the next. …read more

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Today’s guest post is from Mary Jo Manzanares, b5media’s Travel & Cuture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
“Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.”
On August 4th, 1892, wealthy businessmen Andrew Borden, and his wife Abby, were discovered brutally murdered. In reality, Abby was killed with nine blows of an axe, and Andrew with 11. Their youngest daughter, Lizzie, stood trial for the brutal slayings, and was found not guilty. The crime, however, continues to draw speculation as to Lizzie’s actual guilt or innocence, …read more

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This is a guest post from Mary Jo Manzanares, Travel & Culture Channel Editor and blogger at Flyaway Cafe
 
A couple hour drive west of Boston, nearly to the New York state line in Stockbridge, is the Norman Rockwell Museum. 
The site was Rockwell’s home for the last 25 years of his life, and was turned into a museum housing over 700 of his paintings, drawings and studies (the largest collection in the world), along with a huge collection of personal artifacts.
Rockwell is perhaps best known for his 321 Saturday Evening Post covers, with his first in 1916, “Boy with Baby …read more

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Today’s guest post is from Mary Jo Manzanares, b5media’s Travel & Culture Channel Editor and travel blogger at Flyaway Cafe.
Have you noticed how the nights are getting just a little bit cooler? And in the mornings, there’s starting to be a little crispness in the air.
When the weather gets like this, I start thinking about the fall foliage, and how beautiful nature can be this time of year.
Word is that this year’s foliage New England foliage should be spectacular. The warm days and cool evenings are perfect conditions for dramatic color and foliage.
If you’re interested in planning a driving tour …read more

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