Fortnight of Fright 2017 | A Trip to Salem (Lauren from Bookmark Lit)

FoF2014

Welcome to our fifth annual FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT event!
October 17th – October 31st, 2017

Thanks for checking out the SIXTH (is it really!?) annual edition of FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT where Alyssa (Books Take You Places), Amy (Tripping Over Books), and I bring you two full weeks of Halloween-related posts! We’ve invited bloggers, authors, and book lovers alike to share their favorite things about Halloween and we feature a new person and post each day. 

Today, Lauren from Bookmark Lit is sharing about her recent trip to Salem, MA! I went to Salem last year and LOVED it so I’m especially excited to share her post today!


LAUREN FROM BOOKMARK LIT | SALEM, MA

I’m so excited to be here for another year of Fortnight of Fright! My posts usually consist of recommendations for scaredy cats around Halloween, since I don’t do as well with things too gory or spooky (here and here!). Don’t get me wrong… I’ve seen a fair share of horror movies in my younger days. My boyfriend, on the other hand, avoids scary things at all costs. I think it’s made me less brave when it comes to those things!

In any case, I’m here to chat about my recent trip to Salem, MA and all of the barely-scary or not-at-all-scary things we did there. It was for my birthday so Chris wasn’t allowed to complain, but I don’t think we did anything that really creeped him out. I’ve always wanted to go to Salem, so this was a really fun trip for me.

We started out by getting some lunch outside at a fairly forgettable tavern, so I won’t even bother looking that place up. There are some cool tours and museums, like the Salem Wax Museum and Witch Village. When we went in early September, there was a third attraction associated with them that we weren’t able to go to. We went through the small wax museum, which was moderately interesting, and then the “witch village,” which talked about witches throughout history. It was really cool to take in all of that history because it’s not something I remembered a lot of throughout high school. Right up that little street there’s also the Burying Point and Witch Trials Memorial, which were cool to see both during the day and at night.

There are so many cute little streets for shopping too! We found Harry Potter-themed stores called Wynott’s Wands and some other store that I seriously can’t find the name for. They’re right next to each other so I’m sure you’ll find it 😉 The first store obviously has WANDS and the second one has a lot of wizarding/witchy products across different fandoms (I saw mostly Harry Potter but there were some Game of Thrones things too!).

Even though we already learned plenty about Salem’s history, we kept going with the Salem Witch Museum. I felt like there was probably no better place to check out to learn even more. To be honest, it got a LITTLE repetitive because we had already seen two similar tours. I liked the format of this one though, because they had little animatronic scenes to talk about the full history of the witch trials. Then, there was a walk-through section that talked about types of witches throughout history and modern day “witch trials.”

I knew I wanted to check out the water and have a nice birthday dinner in that section of town, so we took the short walk from the Witch Museum to Finz. They had a smaller menu but it was full of delicious seafood options, which is exactly what I wanted. The waterfront section of Salem is really pretty; there was even a wedding taking place right there. I made sure to take advantage of some seasonal beers even though I wish I tried local brews instead (I can still get plenty of them since I live less than two hours from Salem, though!).

We finished the night with arguably the best part of our trip. There are plenty of nighttime Salem tours to take you around the city on foot. We found a great one in the Salem Night Tour because our host was unbelievable. She was funny and interesting; you could tell she really had a passion for everything she was talking about. We walked around the city for an hour or two while she pointed out historical landmarks, haunted spots, and places where Hocus Pocus filmed. It wasn’t really scary, which was nice, but it was really fun and atmospheric to walk around like that at night! Definitely a great way to end the trip.


Thanks so much, Lauren! We did a lot of those things too and I loved the Salem Night Tour! I nearly killed Alyssa and Amy when the tour guide announced it as a ghost tour but you’re right — it really wasn’t scary! Thanks so much for sharing today!

You can also see my own post about my Salem trip as previously posted on my blog!

Hi, I'm Brittany!
Hi, I'm Brittany!

I'm an avid reader, candle-maker, and audiobook lover! Here you'll find book reviews, fun blog posts, and my other loves of photography & craft beer!

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1 thought on “Fortnight of Fright 2017 | A Trip to Salem (Lauren from Bookmark Lit)

  1. Madalyn @ Novel Ink

    Oh hey, Lauren! 😉 I would love to visit Salem eventually. I find the witch trials such an interesting/upsetting part of history. The shops selling Harry Potter-related things sound ADORABLE. The nighttime walking tour sounds like a lot of fun, too!

    Reply

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