Halloween in Salem Massachusetts-A Travel Review
As Experienced by Two Witches and A Cat
Who Doesn't LOVE Halloween? As adults, I think we lose some of the childhood fun mechanisms inside us because of the constraints of work and family, blah, blah blaaaah.
My friends and I said NO to that concept and headed to Salem MA this past weekend for a little recapturing of our childlike spirit.
Salem, MA the home of the original America Witch Trials (well actually Danvers, MA) -I say American because Europeans had been killing "witches" for a long time before 1692 rolled around in Salem. Read more about the Salem Witch trials.
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To get our feet wet we toured the city with the Salem Night Tours to get the lay of the land, so to speak. These tours are walking tours and our guide was very knowledgeable about the city and witches in general.
We hit most of the famous landmarks.
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Bewitched Statue
After the tour we time traveled back to our current century, and made our way to Gula Gula Cafe to get a healthy dose of reggae from a band out of Boston called Long Arm Rex.
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There is so much to see and so many shops that cater to magic and potions and spells and witches. In addition, a lot of shops have taken up the Harry Potter craze too.
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One night, on Friday, in Salem was too short to see it all so we headed back into the city on Saturday for more merriment, this time we dressed up.
We were Two Witches and a Cat (Binx! from the movie Hocus Pocus) (see the photo above) #twowitchesandacat
Note-Some of the exterior scenes in the film were filmed in Salem! They even have Hocus Pocus tours (but they were SOLD OUT this weekend-DUH!)
We spent most of the day just walking around people watching and watching people watch us. We even had a number of requests to have our photo taken with total strangers!
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They even had a boombox playing the Ghostbusters tune!
There were more specators than folks dressed up but it was still a blast.
We had dinner on the water at FINZ, it was delicious. Only an hour wait but it gave us time to walk out the light house.
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After dinner, we made our way back to the Old Town Hall to meet our Mysteries and Murders of Salem Walking Tour. Our guide, Paige was great-very animated in her tale telling.
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We finished our tour at the Old Burial Ground then headed back to Reading MA-we were beat.
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BUT we plotted the whole ride back to New Hampshire and Vermont. This won't be the last trip to Salem during Halloween week for us three oh no.
Although we might try White River Junction's Gory Daze for 2020. But Halloween night on 2020 is supposed to be a FULL MOON so that might signal a return to Salem for us.
More photos and a few videos: CLICK HERE
Nancy Nutile-McMenemy is an Upper Valley freelance photographer and writer who loves to attend concerts and local events in and around Weathersfield and the Upper Valley.
If you have an event you'd like listed please email it to: photosbynanci@comcast.com