Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - 36 Hours in Boston

As I have posted in the past, I take my husband away for a weekend every November on or near his birthday. I tell him very little about where we are going or what I have planned. This year, last weekend to be exact, we spent 36 hours in Boston. Today there is an article in the NYTimes and online about someone else?s 36 hours there?

We stayed at Nine Zero, a new ?boutique? hotel, at 90 Tremont Street across from the Granery Burial Ground, which is on the Freedom Trail, the historic walking tour of the city. I got a great rate from Quikbook, and it really is a very nice hotel. Our room was fairly large, with a large marble bathroom, equipped with amenities from Mario Russo Salon on Newbury Street. We had dinner on Friday night, without a reservation, at the hotel?s restaurant Spire, the staff was accommodating, and our meal was delicious. My appetizer, called the New England Clambake, was a small plate with a sample of everything you would have at a clambake on the beach (no sand): perfectly cooked 2 pieces of lobster, 2 steamed clams on a corn mousse. Desserts, wine list, entrée?everything was nicely done.

Saturday morning we walked to Martignetti?s Liquor Store on the edge of the North End for a 3-hour walking tour of the North End ?neighborhood.? The tour is designed for people who love to cook and love to eat. Our guide is a resident of the North End when she is not a part-time resident of Italy. We visited the little-known-to-tourists pastry shops, bakeries, fruit and vegetable markets, butchers, and so forth. She pointed out the best restaurants, and offered many hints about how to buy, how to cook, how and what to eat and drink. We were asked not to shop until after the tour, and we did exactly that. We learned the history of the North End, much about which foods come from which areas of Italy?-it was great fun. We dropped off our groceries at our hotel, and got on the subway for a quick shopping trip in the Back Bay area and Copley Place.

Dinner that evening was at Julien at the Meridien; this I thought would be the high point of the weekend, but it turned out that our last-minute dinner at Spire was better than our dinner at Julien. The food was very very good as always, although my husband?s cheese assortment never did arrive at the end of the meal. I learned that the Meridien will change hands in January, and I wonder if that?s why it just didn?t seem the same. The hotel and the dining room were not as full as they usually are.

We had planned a walk through the Common and Public Garden and a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts before leaving town but unfortunately were called home early. Nevertheless it was a very nice weekend in my hometown, and I recommend Nine Zero as a place to stay and Spire as a place to have dinner-?not to mention the North End tour.