Day 3 - Salem

Keeping with our more relaxing day we spent the afternoon in Salem, Massachusetts.

We knew very little about this town except that the Salem Witch Trials were here and that Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote a book called House of Seven Gables and that house was supposed to be here.

Just driving through the town we could tell this was not what we were expecting. When we went to the visitor's center to get a map it showed about 10 or more museums dedicated to witches, witchcraft and horrors of all sorts. 

We went to see the House of Seven Gables. When we got there Sophie was not feeling well and we thought she might be sick. The wait for the next tour was about half an hour so we walked through the gift shop for awhile. From the things in the gift shop and the brochure they gave us we could tell they were playing this house up as a sort of spook house. They said it got more than half it's visitors in the month of October.  I think it is sort of the Winchester Mystery House of the East.

In the end we decided not to tour the house and take Sophie to the harbor. But in that gift shop we noticed a small section dedicated to  Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. Since we all loved that book it caught my eye and I flipped it open to one of the illustrations and it was captioned Salem and gave the year. Finally we found something that wasn't linked to the supernatural to enjoy at Salem.

At the harbor we could look out over all the boats in the marina and there was even a tall ship there that must take people out on the bay. They play up the pirates here too so it may be a pirate ship for all we could tell. 

Here is the House of Seven Gables peeking out of the trees. It is very close to the ocean.

 The sea breeze was lovely and Sophie was feeling a bit better

We figured we would try to find a museum or something we could tour to find out more about the Salem Witch Trials but they all seemed more geared toward celebrating the witches and witchcraft and such rather than the history and why these people were accused of being witches.

In the end we just stopped by the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. 

 It was just an open courtyard with 16 stone slabs sticking out of the wall to represent the 16 people accused of being witches.

 Salem was a bit of a disappointment. They seemed to focus on the sinister aspect and not the history. It also didn't help that Sophie was sick and really not excited about doing much of anything.

 But as we drove out of town we notice that The Doctor must be in Salem for some reason. Perhaps he can put things to rights!