The three of us spent our Saturday in Salem, Massachusetts – about 45 minutes from where we’re staying in Boston.

Salem is of course famous for the Witch Trials of 1692, during which more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were ultimately executed. It is now a hub for all things witches and warlocks and the occult with a fun and kitschy pedestrian downtown full of shops worth exploring.
During the 1600s and 1700s, Salem was one of the colony’s major ports – but it didn’t have a good deep water harbor – and has ships got larger and the distances ships travelled increased, Salem lost out to the better locations of Boston and New York.

A coven ready to get their shopping on.

Salem has 18 surviving homes from the 1600s and over 400 total historic buildings up to the early 1800s.

Salem harbor looking across to Marblehead peninsula. The house on the left is “The House of the Seven Gables” – built in 1688 and made famous by the book of the same name by Nathanial Hawthorne. We got a tour of the house and surrounding grounds.

Poking around in the attic, right under one of the seven gables.

“The Burying Point” graveyard from 1637; on the right are a series of flat stones jutting out from the wall. This is the Salem Witch Trials Memorial with the name, date and method of execution carved into a rock for each of the 20 known victims.

Colorful neighborhood in Boston – where we stayed. Spring is just starting to begin its processes up this far north.

Josie’s buggy in front of the block where we stayed.