Massachusetts: Salem in the Off Season
While we were in Massachusetts for Thanksgiving, we decided to take a day trip to Salem!
Getting there from Boston was easy enough. You can grab a train right to Salem. If you buy a transit pass to get around while you are in Boston, you will still need a separate ticket for the commuter rail to and from Salem.
Upon arriving in Salem, we soon found out that it was the off-season. Halloween was over and so many of the different witch museums were closed. A few of the walking tours were still going though. We opted out of doing one because that day I was sick and it was fairly cold outside. A lot of the little shops around town were also open.
We found a vintage photography studio and decided to take some pictures. This is one of our favorite souvenirs when we travel.
We had a great time dressing up as witches and getting our photos taken. And this place was great! They took a ton of photos and used 3 different backgrounds and all sorts of props. If you've been to one of these before, you'll find that they usually just let you pick one background and then they take maybe 10 photos. This place also had an option to buy a cd of all the photos, which was awesome, because there were a lot to choose from. So, shout out to Salem's Vintage Photography! They stay open all year long, as well.
After that, we decided to check out the Peabody Essex Museum.
The P.E.M. is an art museum. It has a lot of exhibits featuring Asian and American art. And also a lot of maritime related art. It was refreshing because most art museums you go to heavily feature the paintings and European art. It was nice to get to look at something different in the art world.
As part of the museum, they also have a ancient Chinese home that they brought over from China called Yin Yu Tang. Everything was set up with artifacts from the family that lived there or that was from the same time. No pictures are allowed inside, but I'd recommend checking it out.
For the last thing of the day, we walked to the Salem Witch Trails Memorial. The memorial honors those who were killed for being thought to be witches. Their names are written on stones around the memorial.
We had a nice time that day in Salem. It was actually really quiet walking around because so many shops were closed. I'd definitely like to go back again during the peak season so I could check out all the museums there.
