Tag: Heritage Days

Exploring Your Heritage

The Friendship
When someone mentions the word “heritage,” you probably think of a list of long-gone relatives and all of the places that they were originally from. In fact, you may even know a little bit about the history of some of your more famous or infamous ancestors (depending on how interested you are in your own family’s history.) However, when you stop and think about it, you may know a lot about your own family’s history, but how much do you really know about the history of the city that you’re living in? I mean if someone asked, would you know if your city had once been a major trading port? A breeding ground for smugglers and pirates? The site of a literal witch hunt? Or anything else about the major events that had an impact on the place that you live today?

Well, if you would like to learn more about a city that has been all of these things and more, there’s no better time than now to visit Salem. This is because Salem, MA is hosting its 53rd Annual Heritage Days Celebration, which is a 10-day festival that demonstrates just how much fun Salem can be. This festival, which runs from now until Sunday, August 10th, will feature an antique car show, a bike race, concerts, clowns, dance performances, ice cream samples as part of the Ice Scream Bowl, a kid’s night filled with rides and games, a pizza competition, a street fair, writing and book binding workshops, and a whole lot more. Best of all, most of the events during Heritage Days are completely free, and the events that do include a fee (usually $3 to $5 a person) will typically include food or rides. For more information on Salem’s Heritage Days, including a full schedule, please visit the Official Salem, MA Guide website.

Photo credit: Mr.TinDC / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Friday Fun: Salem Heritage Days

There’s no question that Salem, Massachusetts is typically associated with witches as even the city’s police cars have the image of a witch emblazoned on them. In fact, the city’s police cars not only have the image of a witch, but also have the words “The Witch City” clearly printed below the word “Salem” in almost every logo. As you might guess, this fascination with the witch hysteria (or this hysteria about the hysteria if you will) has caused the month of October to become the city’s big draw because everyone wants to be in Salem for Halloween. However, even though the city is already preparing for the festivities that will occur in a couple of months, there is an event that started this past week and will continue into the weekend that is more aimed at the local crowd than the tourists that come for the witches. This event is Salem’s Heritage Days.

Salem’s Heritage Days is a week-long celebration of everything that Salem has to offer. The celebration, which began last weekend and runs until this Sunday, features an antique car show, a comedy show, a Jazz and Soul Festival, a Kid’s Night with rides and games, music, a street fair, a women’s 5k run that includes wine and chocolate for each of the runners afterwards, and a bunch of other events. Best of all, these events are just the events happening this weekend as part of the festival and most of the events are free. If you’re interested in finding out more about Salem’s Heritage Day celebration, you can find all of the information you need and more on the City of Salem website.