Great Food & History in Boston's North End (Little Italy)

Last week my wife had a conference in Boston. Since she doesn't like to travel alone and I have the type of job for which I can work remotely I tagged along. She spent Sunday in a pre-conference session so I spent the day at the North End which is also known as Boston's Little Italy.

After a short ride in the late morning, thanks to Uber, I was surrounded by olive skin, great smells wafting from restaurants and the sounds of folks speaking Italian. I walked up and down several streets several times just to make sure I didn't miss anything before going into any stores or shops. I highly recommend stopping by Ernesto's to get a slice of pizza. This pizza had the most incredible crust that I've ever eaten. I recommend getting there early because when Ernesto's only makes a set number of pizzas every day then they close their doors and go home. I took a few pictures that you can find at the bottom of this blog post.

After a few hours of walking around I started to get hungry and had to pick a spot for something to eat and I wanted traditional Italian. On the main street at the North End the restaurant La Famiglia Spagnuolo caught my eye and spoke to my stomach! I walked in and was greeted by a short dark haired older Italian lady who, after learning that I was by myself, said "Honey, I'm going to take care of you." When I told her I was in the mood for seafood pasta said she would bring me a linguine with mussels, clams and shrimp. I also asked for some bruschetta for an appetizer but was told "Oh, that's too much food. I'm going to make you a nice salad." How can you argue with an Italian lady who obviously has been with the restaurant forever. Well, when I got my salad it was HUGE and came with an entire loaf of Italian bread. This made me wonder how big the freaking bruschetta would have been if it was too much. Well, the linguine was incredible and the clams were as big as my fist.

I needed to walk off the pasta so I walked a portion of the Freedom Trail. I visited Copp's Burying Ground, Paul Revere's home and the church where Paul Revere hung his lamp to signal that the British were coming.

It was getting near the time that my wife's pre-conference session was about to end so I headed back to the hotel. I told my wife about the small bread shop I found down an alley, the specialty shops down some of the side roads, the old headstones at the cemetery. So, we caught an Uber back to the North End so that I could share these memories with her and took her to see every awesome Italian shop, the sites on the Freedom Trail and to grab some sweets from Mike's Pastry. We ended our great time by having an awesome dinner at Al Dente.

So, check out the pictures below and feel free to share you stories about Boston's North End.