A Visit to the Witch City

Last week, Allie mentioned how a friend of hers had visited Salem and asked if we could possibly go before Halloween.  Rich lived on the North Shore when we were dating and we did the whole walking around Salem at night the weekend before Halloween thing.  That was 15 years ago.  Here and there, we've mentioned bringing the girls for a day trip but we've never followed through.

Do people outside of New England know the history of Salem, MA?  It's mostly known for the witch trials which took place there in 1692, resulting in the execution of 20 people.  As such, it's viewed as a haunted place which tourists flock to mainly at Halloween time.

We figured Saturday would be the most crowded because of the weather forecast and the Patriots game on Sunday.  Our best bet was to get up early on Sunday and go.  Rain wasn't expected until the afternoon and we were hoping to get in and out before that started.  I didn't do any planning for this outing.  Rich quickly researched and found the Salem Witch Museum, which we're pretty sure is where Allie's friend had visited.  We decided to pop in there and then possibly the House of the Seven Gables.

So a little bit about the Salem Witch Museum.  It's not actually a museum.  When I hear "museum" I think of a building containing a collection of items where guests walk around and explore.  Not here. This museum has shows every half hour.  You need to first get in line to purchase tickets for a show and then you enter the building only for the show.  Our timing was somewhat perfect in that we waited in line for about ten to fifteen minutes before buying tickets at 10:25 for the 10:30 show, which was almost sold out.

There are two parts to the show.  First, you are seated in a room with museum-like displays high in the walls.  The best way to describe these displays is to think about huge shoebox dioramas.  These displays depict scenes from the witch trials.  Through an automated guide, guests learned the history of the witch trials.  Then you move to a different room, where a guide talks about the history of witches for about 10 minutes.  Overall, our visit there was okay.  It was informative, it wasn't drawn out or boring.  I would say that it's not geared towards young kids.  Approximately 90% of the guests were adults.  While my kids understood a good deal of it, I'm sure some of it went over their heads.  Emily acted scared when we were there and commented how it was scary but no one has had nightmares or the like because of it.

After our visit to the Salem Witch Museum, we walked around for a bit and then decided to head home because the rain had started.  Also, Emily was grumpy because we didn't have an agenda.  I don't know if you have kids like this but I should have known better than to try to wing it.  She operates her best when there's an agenda and she knows where we're going, what we're doing and where we are eating.  You don't have to follow the agenda down to the last detail but there needs to be an agenda.  It was also windy and chilly, and overall, not a great day for being outdoors.

I don't have any photos from the museum because photography was not allowed but I did snap a few as we walked around Salem.  You know how I love old houses.






Look at the inside shutters and that porch!








Zero children would participate.

We'll return to Salem (with an agenda), but I've been told by the girls we can only visit right before Halloween.  Um, okay.