The Salem Witches

Leaving the mountains behind this morning we drove for two and a half hours to Salem. I wasn’t expecting it to be like it was! The Halloween season starts on the first Thursday in October with a big parade and finishes on the night of Halloween. It’s an extravaganza of ghosts, skeletons, witches, coffins and all things spooky and the town experiences an influx of 60-100,000 visitors every year. They have capitalised on their history which saw the Puritans in the mid 1600s who settled there, accuse, find guilty and put to death 20 women whom they thought were witches. 19 were hanged and 1 crushed to death 😳 It was a bit like Blackpool-a bit tacky and lots of people dressed up to reflect the Halloween theme. We did visit the graveyard where the 20 women were buried although it wasn’t clear exactly where they were. I was expecting a quaint, coastal town with maybe a museum or two. Funnily enough there was another “event” on the town open green space-not Bark in the Park this time but mobile street food vans. Ted had a chicken curry and I had a pizza dog. We did take the Red Trolley Bus Tour which was expensive at $24 each and a bit of a silly commentary focusing mostly on locations where horror movies and shows had been filmed like Hocus Pocus. There were 1 or 2 interesting facts but not worth the cost really.Read more