Boston - Idle time while son on Boston Univ tour ... Suggestions??
 

My son is going on the Boston University Tour on a Tuesday in February from 8:45am - 12:30. We will all go on a walking tour of the college after.
Is there anything near the college or in the college that might be fun for my husband & I to do? Perhaps a good coffee place or something nice to visit.......

Thanks in advance -Cindi

If it's BU you're talking about (rather than Boston College), it's a huge urban university, mostly stretched out along Commonwealth Avenue. Not sure what the difference would be, between his 3-hour visit and your "walking tour" after.

Is he going on a general tour of the University or is he focusing on a specific College (Engineering, Education, Fine Arts, etc.)? Most of them are handy to Kenmore Square. With 3 hours, you can hop on the Green Line and be downtown or anywhere you please. Plenty of local coffeshop type hangouts, too.

If you are sports fans, Fenway Park is within walking distance, and you can take a tour - tours start at 9:00 AM. You can find out more about the tours here: http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/bos/ballpark/tour.jsp

If you like art, The Museum of Fine Arts is not far - It's a short cab ride away, or if you have a car, there's a parking garage there. They don't open until 10:00 AM, so you'd only have a couple of hours there, but it's a wonderful museum (I love the Gardner Museum, too, but they don't open until 11:00 AM).

Anonymous is right, if you have over 3 and a half hours to kill, you have plenty of time to take the green line downtown, There's plenty to do near various green line stops - you could go to the Prudential Center and go up to the Skywalk Observatory on the 50th floor for a 360 degree panoramic view of Boston, you could walk down Newbury Street and around the nearby Back Bay neighborhoods, walk around Beacon Hill, Boston Common, and the Public Garden (although I admit this isn't as appealing in February as it would be when the weather is nicer), go the Quincy Market - these are just a few suggestions, there are lots of options, depending on what interests you.

for lunch:

http://easternstandardboston.com/ES_viewer.html

A "walking tour" of BU in February does not sound like much fun to me. Campus is mostly spread out on Commonwealth Avenue and 2 streets parallel to it and stretches about a mile. The central buildings - student union and a few dorms - are all within a few blocks, but much else is quite spread out. Boston in February is general cold, wet, windy and miserable. Wear boots, hat, gloves, etc. (admittedly some of this distaste for Feb weather is due to the fact that I just got in from making home visits for work stepping in puddles of 6 inches of slush and water and my boots leaked)

We did the basic BU tour in October. It was primarily the central buildings that Gail refers to. Maybe 5 blocks worth. The entire tour and presention lasted maybe 1.5 - 2 hrs.

The Museum of FIne Arts is a great place to kill time nearby. There's a cafeteria where you can grab a bite or have a cup of coffee. Newbury St, also nearby has many restaurants, cafes and stores.