2025-08-08: Donuts, Paul Revere, and Harvard

It was our last full day in Boston. We had a relaxed morning and let the kids sleep in. We didn’t leave the hotel until noon today. We crossed the street and hopped on the train to head downtown. We had a 1:00pm “Underground Donut Tour” booked and had to meet at a donut shop called Kane’s Donuts.

When we arrived at the donut shop, we found our guide waiting for us outside. Here name is Sabrina. It turns out we were the only ones who booked the 1:00pm tour, so we got a private tour. There was some construction going on outside the entrance, so she escorted us down the block to start the tour. She had already picked up our donuts from Kane’s. She explained that the store opened in 1955 in Saugus, MA. They have two locations there and the one location in Boston. When the original owners retired, they sold the company to Dunkin Donuts. The quality dropped significantly. Another donut shop owner who had retired frequented Kane’s regularly. When he saw the quality dropping after Dunkin bought it, he was unhappy and ended up coming out of retirement to buy the Kane’s Donuts brand and restore it to glory. It is still owned by the family. We tired a honey glazed donut first. It was very yummy.

We walked a few blocks to Rowes Wharf for our second donut, also from Kane’s. It was a blueberry cake donut. It was tasty, but not as good as the first. On our way, we had to stop while they replaced a HUGE American flag at one of the hotels. Sabrina took our picture on the wharf for us. We continued on to Faneuil Hall where we stopped and tried the third donut, a creme brulee donut. We enjoyed it better than the second donut. She gave some history on Faneuil Hall. The weather vane on top of the building has a grasshopper on it. When the building was built, it was a commerce center. The weather vane duplicates one on the commerce center building in London, so those visiting from England could easily identify the building. During the revolution, they used it to identify spies. If someone identified it as a cricket instead of a grasshopper, they were British and subsequently arrested as a spy. In the 70s the grasshopper was stolen. After an “extensive search” by the police, the grasshopper remained missing. Six months later, a man was arrested on minor drug charges. He made a plea deal asking for a reduced sentence for the location of the grasshopper. They agreed and he told them he stole the grasshopper and hid it in the floorboards of steeple he removed it from. The police were shamed for not finding it. He was going to ransom the location, but then got arrested so had to use to plea down his sentence. He wasn’t very smart though, because he didn’t include the theft of the grasshopper as part of the plea deal which is actually a more serious crime. So, he was still arrested and served time for the theft. Across the street from Faneuil Hall is Boston City Hall. It is know as one of the four most ugly buildings in the world.

We walked to Boston Public Market and tried a couple of donuts from vendors in the market. The first was an apple cider donut from Red Apple Farm. It was basically an apple cider flavored mini donut. We also had some apple cider to drink. Again, it was tasty but not as enjoyable as the Kane’s donuts.

We headed to another section of the market and got donuts from Union Square donuts. They have a rotating menu. We tried a raspberry cheesecake donut and a cruller with brown sugar icing. The brown sugar donut was very good. The raspberry cheesecake donut was good, but not our favorite.

We continued on to the North End area of Boston to Bova’s Bakery. the North End was an immigrant area and language was an issue at times. They used to embed items in the sidewalk to identify the type of business. Cutlery for a restaurant, butcher’s knife for a butcher, etc. The bakery was established in 1926 by an Italian immigrant and wasn’t terribly successful at first. He started going door to door giving samples of his bread to get people to try it. It worked and business picked up and they’ve been in business ever since. They were approached by the mob to pay protection money. The mob would make sure no one would break in overnight when the business was closed. They declined the protection offer and then changed the business hours to be 24/7 to prevent them from robbing the place after hours. It remains open 24/7, even on holidays. We tried a Boston Creme donut from Bova’s. We were pretty disappointed by it, which we were surprised about. Boston Creme is one of Darrell’s favorites, but we didn’t like this one. Sabrina did say that the donut changes from day to day because the family can’t agree how it should be made. So, whoever is running the bakery that day uses the recipe they like. After eating the donut, we said goodbye to Sabrina and carried on our way.

We were only a couple of blocks away from Paul Revere House, so we went to check it out. It’s a restoration of the home Paul Revere and his wife and 16 children lived in. The 16 children were born over the course of 30 years, so they didn’t all live in the house at the same time. The number of people living there would range from 6 to 11 over the years. They had artifacts and stories from Paul Revere and his family on display through the house. Once we were finished at the house, we continued a few more blocks to a statue of Paul Revere.

Patrick wanted to check out the Harvard campus, so we made our way back to the subway and found our way to Harvard. It is a massive campus! We walked through a part of the campus and saw students moving into the dorms, walked past the science building, and made our way to the school of law building. The buildings are impressive and surrounded by green spaces. We discovered that Harvard isn’t what Patrick expected it to be. He thought it was a “pyramid shaped building near the water”. We weren’t sure what he was talking about. We eventually figured out he was talking about the Sydney Opera House. Somehow he thought the Opera House was Harvard. We harassed him about that a bit. After spending some time exploring the Harvard campus, we made our way back to our hotel.

We hung out in the hotel and then went to grab some dinner at a Japanese restaurant a couple of blocks away. The food was very good, but it wasn’t a cheap restaurant. Amanda left early to run across the street to the urgent care clinic again. She felt an ear infection festering in her ear now. The rest of the family finished dinner and Darrell sent the kids back to the hotel. Darrell met up with Amanda at the pharmacy. They got the antibiotics Amanda needed and then returned to the hotel as well. We packed up our gear to get ready to board the cruise ship tomorrow before calling it a night.