Salem – Day 1
We had our first full day in Salem, and our first slightly haunted experience at the Hawthorne Hotel. We are staying right up the hall from the reputedly haunted room, being in room #617, near to room #612, which is cool.
We spent most of the day on Essex Street, which is right outside the hotel. If you are a witch, I highly recommend visiting Essex Street in Salem. It is a hive of stores dedicated to witchery. I lost track of how much money I spent on herbs, candles, oils, gems, and other essentials. And what would a trip be without a few souvenir t-shirts? We visited the Witch Board Museum, and also took a 5-minute tour of a Haunted House–not an actual haunted house, but the type of thing normally assembled for Halloween tourism. It was great!
The Hawthorne Hotel is also near the Salem Witch Museum, which is a great place to get some history on the craft. I like how they showed that witch hunts didn’t end with the witches–it continued in any part of history where a group of people was unnecessarily stigmatized.
As for our semi-haunted experience, it happened in the middle of the day. Burdened down as we were with our Essex Street finds, we made a couple of trips back to the hotel to unload our bags. After trip two, as we were heading down the hall to the elevator, the door opened just in time to greet us… but no one got out. Odd, but not necessarily proof of a ghost. It was pretty cool, though.
Being someone skeptical, but open, I will say that there is an odd feeling I get in this hotel that I don’t in others. Maybe it’s because it’s so old, and it smells like a well-cleaned but old building. Maybe it’s because I am so excited about being in Salem. However, I can’t help feel as if there are more people in any given area than there are.
We closed our day out with a guided tour by an actual witch. We started at Crow Haven Corner, and were led by Charlotte–a charming and knowledgeable witch–through the streets of Salem. Her input was wonderful and humorous, and my family loved her. When she found out that three of us were practicing witches as well, she would ask us for answers to questions sometimes, and would then elaborate on the answers we gave for the benefit of the family who accompanied us. I highly recommend the tour to anyone who comes to Salem.
