Packed 4 day weekend in Boston
Jul 18th, 2016, 02:40 PM
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Packed 4 day weekend in Boston
Just finished a great 4-day weekend in Boston and thought I would share it. For starters, I have been to Boston several times and am not all that in love with it but I wanted to visit my daughter who has been living there for the past year. I have to hand it to her as I asked her to come up with an itinerary which wasn’t the standard tourist grind.
I flew a red-eye from Sacramento through Chicago, arriving at Logan Airport in Boston around 10:30AM, Friday . Since my daughter doesn’t have a car and Uber can’t pick you up at the airport, took the FREE Silver Line from the airport to South Station. My daughter met me there and we took the Red Line to Cambridge (where she lives). The best part is that my connection to the Red Line was also for FREE. (Can you tell that I really love to get free or discounted stuff?). It was amazing to me that I could actually travel from the airport into Boston for nothing. Granted if you had a ton of luggage it would probably be too difficult. One other disclaimer is that with the exception of my last day in Boston, the weather for some weird reason was uncharacteristically cool – it was as if San Francisco summer weather had translocated with me to Boston. For those of you who don’t know this, summer in SF is typically overcast, cool and maybe even windy. Thank goodness I checked the weather report before I left as I realized I needed to throw in some long pants and long-sleeved shirts as shorts and T-shirts would not have been enough. It did make it easier to do all of the outdoor stuff since we weren’t dying from heat and humidity.
After freshening up, we grabbed lunch at Le’s Vietnamese Restaurant (most of the restaurants I mention are actually in Cambridge) which is your typical college town Vietnamese restaurant – good and decent value for price. Then my daughter took me on a walking tour of Boston. I specifically didn’t want to do the Freedom Trail because a) I grew up on the East Coast and have already had my fill of this kind of stuff and b) for some reason Revolutionary War history just doesn’t excite me that much. From Cambridge, we walked away from Harvard Square, towards MIT (which has some neat architecture which I had already seen in the past), down Mass Ave, passing the Cambridge City Hall on the way – it is a beautiful “Romanesque” style building. Then we walked across the Mass Ave Bridge – looking at the boats and the other bridges off in the distance. Next we turned up Boylston Street (Back Bay area). We reached Copley Square. Our plan was to take a look inside the Boston Public Library but they were closed that day! There was a grand re-opening planned for the next day as they had completed a big renovation project. So instead we hung out on the steps and listened to the “Opera Guy” perform arias. He performs with a microphone and digital accompaniment and sounds great. My daughter (who has sung classical music in the past) wasn’t convinced that he was for real as he sounded almost too good. But here is a link (https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...6nN/story.html) about him and apparently he is for real. He did have an excellent voice. We moved on and ended up in the Boston Public Garden and Boston Commons. We rested for a bit and actually saw an albino squirrel!
After taking the T back to her place we rested and then went to Central Kitchen for cocktails and small plates. I would highly recommend as everything we ordered was yummy – oysters on the half shell, ceviche, fried octopus and gouda fries. We were stuffed and then headed off to catch “Mortified” which was playing at the American Repertory Theater. According to the ART website, Mortified is described as:
Hailed as a "cultural phenomenon" by NewsWeek and celebrated for years by the likes of This American Life, The Today Show, The Onion AV Club, &Entertainment Weekly, Mortified is a comic excavation of teen angst artifacts (journals, poems, letters, lyrics, home movies, schoolwork) as shared by their original authors -- in front of total strangers.
I have to say that this show was super funny and it was nice that I happened to be in Boston when this came to town as they tour all over the country I guess. Five different authors read aloud their letters or journals or you name it reminding us all about the weird and awkward things we all experience as teenagers. After laughing our heads off we stopped off at Mike’s Pastries and picked up dessert to eat at home.
Saturday AM, we headed out for more food – this time eating brunch at Café Luna-another yummy meal. I had the Chocolate and Caramelized Banana and Pecan French Toast while my daughter ordered Lobster Eggs Benedict. My mouth is watering just remembering this. We felt somewhat ok with eating these super high calorie meals as our next stop was to rent a 2 man kayak at the Charles River Canoe and Kayak at their Kendall Square location. So they give you a laminated card to read about the safety rules and then they fit you out and off you go. Initially I was fine as you start out in a quiet little side area but as soon as we got out into the main area of the Charles River I completely freaked out. I was convinced that we were going to be run over by a barge or other commercial boat or a power boat. Of course none of that happened but my poor daughter had to spend a lot of time from the back reassuring me that it was going to “be ok”. I kept telling her that I wanted to turn around and go back but she remained firm and eventually I stopped trying to steer from the front and we began to make some progress as we hit a quieter place in the river. It was actually quite a lot of fun once I calmed down. After we put in at the Boston/Alston station we took Uber to Harpoon Brewery. They have the American version of a beer hall. Wow, that place was BUSY. There was a 30 min line to just get into the beer hall where they serve yummy pretzels and a selection of their different beers. First we signed up for the tour, then went back to the line, got up to the beer hall and had a round of beers and pretzels and finished in time to take the brewery tour. The tour itself is pretty simple but the best part is that afterward you have a 20 min beer tasting session where you can try all the different beers (I think it was 9) that they have on tap for that day. Honestly, by that point I probably didn’t take as much advantage of this as I should have as I was getting dizzy. We UBERed home, took a nap and then ran out to a ramen place (Santouka – not bad but a bit pricey) for dinner.
On Sunday we slept in and by the time we got up we were still full from the night before. Our main activity for the day was to visit the Museum of Fine Arts. I had previously been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum so wanted to try a different museum. I was surprised by how much I loved this museum. One reason may have been the special exhibit “Mega Cities Asia” that was showing at the time. The exhibition was excellent – thought provoking, visually stimulating, interactive and just enjoyable. Sometimes I see modern art pieces which I feel are just unpleasant or shocking just for the sake of being shocking. But there were many more exhibitions and their permanent collections are also well laid out. We spent 4 ½ hours here and did not feel tired or bored at all. Afterward we stopped at Carrie Nation Cocktail Club – an upscale bar ironically named after a woman who was notorious for taking a hatchet to alcohol serving establishments even before Prohibition became the norm. We ordered cocktails and a charcuterie plate (since we hadn’t really had breakfast or lunch). Then we walked over to The Barking Crab (a very casual and super loud restaurant on the river) to have dinner with my daughter’s friends. The meal was fine (I just had pasta since I don’t like crab!). At one point, one family ordered what looked like a 10lb lobster. The servers were holding it up in the air and people were taking selfies with it – LOL. Afterwards we took the T back home – but get this – I went for FREE yet again! I guess on the weekend evenings, the particular line we needed to take is undergoing track work so they have buses which take you to the nearest working station. They don’t charge you for getting on these shuttle buses which roll you right into the T station where you can just walk onto the subway car.
My final day on Monday, we slept in and then walked to Union Square Donuts (Somerville) and ordered 4 donuts – bacon maple, blueberry jam, brown butter hazelnut crunch and chocolate cake. OK – these are really expensive donuts, but they were pretty good. If you have to pick just one – go with the brown butter hazelnut crunch – delicious! Afterwards we made our way back to the Boston Public Library. Now that it had officially reopened after finishing the big renovation project it was wonderful to have the opportunity to walk around. The interior courtyard is gorgeous and the interior of the library with its art and public spaces is also amazing to see. For our final activity we went to Bella Sante Spa which is a super luxurious day spa within walking distance of the library. I treated my daughter and myself to a massage. Afterward we had dinner at Toscano’s back in Cambridge as we had not eaten since we stuffed ourselves with the donuts earlier that day. While their wine by the glass was NOT good, the food was excellent and a great way to finish the day.
The following morning I left early to check in for my flight out of Logan. I have to comment that this is one of the most efficient airports I have ever encountered. I arrived way too early because even with checking a bag I was done with everything in about 20 min. Some final thoughts, my daughter points out that the public transportation overall is not as good as in other cities – Seoul, San Francisco. But as a tourist, I felt that it was very easy to get around using a combination of walking, the T and Uber. No, we didn’t go to Beacon Hill or Faneuil Hall or Boston Public Market or have a dinner at the North End – but I’ve done all that before. Overall, I felt as if I had the chance to see a lot of Boston that I hadn’t had a chance to experience before and the variety was great – from walking to kayaking, from beer tasting to eating a variety of cuisines, from visiting a museum to catching a show – we were able to pack in a lot of fun.
I flew a red-eye from Sacramento through Chicago, arriving at Logan Airport in Boston around 10:30AM, Friday . Since my daughter doesn’t have a car and Uber can’t pick you up at the airport, took the FREE Silver Line from the airport to South Station. My daughter met me there and we took the Red Line to Cambridge (where she lives). The best part is that my connection to the Red Line was also for FREE. (Can you tell that I really love to get free or discounted stuff?). It was amazing to me that I could actually travel from the airport into Boston for nothing. Granted if you had a ton of luggage it would probably be too difficult. One other disclaimer is that with the exception of my last day in Boston, the weather for some weird reason was uncharacteristically cool – it was as if San Francisco summer weather had translocated with me to Boston. For those of you who don’t know this, summer in SF is typically overcast, cool and maybe even windy. Thank goodness I checked the weather report before I left as I realized I needed to throw in some long pants and long-sleeved shirts as shorts and T-shirts would not have been enough. It did make it easier to do all of the outdoor stuff since we weren’t dying from heat and humidity.
After freshening up, we grabbed lunch at Le’s Vietnamese Restaurant (most of the restaurants I mention are actually in Cambridge) which is your typical college town Vietnamese restaurant – good and decent value for price. Then my daughter took me on a walking tour of Boston. I specifically didn’t want to do the Freedom Trail because a) I grew up on the East Coast and have already had my fill of this kind of stuff and b) for some reason Revolutionary War history just doesn’t excite me that much. From Cambridge, we walked away from Harvard Square, towards MIT (which has some neat architecture which I had already seen in the past), down Mass Ave, passing the Cambridge City Hall on the way – it is a beautiful “Romanesque” style building. Then we walked across the Mass Ave Bridge – looking at the boats and the other bridges off in the distance. Next we turned up Boylston Street (Back Bay area). We reached Copley Square. Our plan was to take a look inside the Boston Public Library but they were closed that day! There was a grand re-opening planned for the next day as they had completed a big renovation project. So instead we hung out on the steps and listened to the “Opera Guy” perform arias. He performs with a microphone and digital accompaniment and sounds great. My daughter (who has sung classical music in the past) wasn’t convinced that he was for real as he sounded almost too good. But here is a link (https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...6nN/story.html) about him and apparently he is for real. He did have an excellent voice. We moved on and ended up in the Boston Public Garden and Boston Commons. We rested for a bit and actually saw an albino squirrel!
After taking the T back to her place we rested and then went to Central Kitchen for cocktails and small plates. I would highly recommend as everything we ordered was yummy – oysters on the half shell, ceviche, fried octopus and gouda fries. We were stuffed and then headed off to catch “Mortified” which was playing at the American Repertory Theater. According to the ART website, Mortified is described as:
Hailed as a "cultural phenomenon" by NewsWeek and celebrated for years by the likes of This American Life, The Today Show, The Onion AV Club, &Entertainment Weekly, Mortified is a comic excavation of teen angst artifacts (journals, poems, letters, lyrics, home movies, schoolwork) as shared by their original authors -- in front of total strangers.
I have to say that this show was super funny and it was nice that I happened to be in Boston when this came to town as they tour all over the country I guess. Five different authors read aloud their letters or journals or you name it reminding us all about the weird and awkward things we all experience as teenagers. After laughing our heads off we stopped off at Mike’s Pastries and picked up dessert to eat at home.
Saturday AM, we headed out for more food – this time eating brunch at Café Luna-another yummy meal. I had the Chocolate and Caramelized Banana and Pecan French Toast while my daughter ordered Lobster Eggs Benedict. My mouth is watering just remembering this. We felt somewhat ok with eating these super high calorie meals as our next stop was to rent a 2 man kayak at the Charles River Canoe and Kayak at their Kendall Square location. So they give you a laminated card to read about the safety rules and then they fit you out and off you go. Initially I was fine as you start out in a quiet little side area but as soon as we got out into the main area of the Charles River I completely freaked out. I was convinced that we were going to be run over by a barge or other commercial boat or a power boat. Of course none of that happened but my poor daughter had to spend a lot of time from the back reassuring me that it was going to “be ok”. I kept telling her that I wanted to turn around and go back but she remained firm and eventually I stopped trying to steer from the front and we began to make some progress as we hit a quieter place in the river. It was actually quite a lot of fun once I calmed down. After we put in at the Boston/Alston station we took Uber to Harpoon Brewery. They have the American version of a beer hall. Wow, that place was BUSY. There was a 30 min line to just get into the beer hall where they serve yummy pretzels and a selection of their different beers. First we signed up for the tour, then went back to the line, got up to the beer hall and had a round of beers and pretzels and finished in time to take the brewery tour. The tour itself is pretty simple but the best part is that afterward you have a 20 min beer tasting session where you can try all the different beers (I think it was 9) that they have on tap for that day. Honestly, by that point I probably didn’t take as much advantage of this as I should have as I was getting dizzy. We UBERed home, took a nap and then ran out to a ramen place (Santouka – not bad but a bit pricey) for dinner.
On Sunday we slept in and by the time we got up we were still full from the night before. Our main activity for the day was to visit the Museum of Fine Arts. I had previously been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum so wanted to try a different museum. I was surprised by how much I loved this museum. One reason may have been the special exhibit “Mega Cities Asia” that was showing at the time. The exhibition was excellent – thought provoking, visually stimulating, interactive and just enjoyable. Sometimes I see modern art pieces which I feel are just unpleasant or shocking just for the sake of being shocking. But there were many more exhibitions and their permanent collections are also well laid out. We spent 4 ½ hours here and did not feel tired or bored at all. Afterward we stopped at Carrie Nation Cocktail Club – an upscale bar ironically named after a woman who was notorious for taking a hatchet to alcohol serving establishments even before Prohibition became the norm. We ordered cocktails and a charcuterie plate (since we hadn’t really had breakfast or lunch). Then we walked over to The Barking Crab (a very casual and super loud restaurant on the river) to have dinner with my daughter’s friends. The meal was fine (I just had pasta since I don’t like crab!). At one point, one family ordered what looked like a 10lb lobster. The servers were holding it up in the air and people were taking selfies with it – LOL. Afterwards we took the T back home – but get this – I went for FREE yet again! I guess on the weekend evenings, the particular line we needed to take is undergoing track work so they have buses which take you to the nearest working station. They don’t charge you for getting on these shuttle buses which roll you right into the T station where you can just walk onto the subway car.
My final day on Monday, we slept in and then walked to Union Square Donuts (Somerville) and ordered 4 donuts – bacon maple, blueberry jam, brown butter hazelnut crunch and chocolate cake. OK – these are really expensive donuts, but they were pretty good. If you have to pick just one – go with the brown butter hazelnut crunch – delicious! Afterwards we made our way back to the Boston Public Library. Now that it had officially reopened after finishing the big renovation project it was wonderful to have the opportunity to walk around. The interior courtyard is gorgeous and the interior of the library with its art and public spaces is also amazing to see. For our final activity we went to Bella Sante Spa which is a super luxurious day spa within walking distance of the library. I treated my daughter and myself to a massage. Afterward we had dinner at Toscano’s back in Cambridge as we had not eaten since we stuffed ourselves with the donuts earlier that day. While their wine by the glass was NOT good, the food was excellent and a great way to finish the day.
The following morning I left early to check in for my flight out of Logan. I have to comment that this is one of the most efficient airports I have ever encountered. I arrived way too early because even with checking a bag I was done with everything in about 20 min. Some final thoughts, my daughter points out that the public transportation overall is not as good as in other cities – Seoul, San Francisco. But as a tourist, I felt that it was very easy to get around using a combination of walking, the T and Uber. No, we didn’t go to Beacon Hill or Faneuil Hall or Boston Public Market or have a dinner at the North End – but I’ve done all that before. Overall, I felt as if I had the chance to see a lot of Boston that I hadn’t had a chance to experience before and the variety was great – from walking to kayaking, from beer tasting to eating a variety of cuisines, from visiting a museum to catching a show – we were able to pack in a lot of fun.
Jul 19th, 2016, 01:17 AM
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You are an enthusiast!
I totally envy your energy level after getting off a red-eye at 10:30.
It would be a lot of fun to see Boston with a young person. All my young friends are in their 50's!
You may be the only person in the history of this forum to applaud Logan for its efficiency, but there have been lots of good changes in recent years.
Fun report!
I totally envy your energy level after getting off a red-eye at 10:30.
It would be a lot of fun to see Boston with a young person. All my young friends are in their 50's!
You may be the only person in the history of this forum to applaud Logan for its efficiency, but there have been lots of good changes in recent years.
Fun report!
Jul 19th, 2016, 05:17 AM
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Ackislander - I was also surprised by my experience at Logan. My daughter kept telling me that every time she flew out she was able to get through super quickly and would always end up sitting at the gate for a while. Maybe it is just better than Chicago or San Francicsco.
I was also a little nervous whether I would last energy wise but the secret was cat naps. In between we would go back to her apartment and I would take a 30-60 min nap! Probably the cool weather didn't hurt either.
dfroshtnh - Others were out there wind-surfing, paddle-boarding, crewing and sailing - so a huge variety of water sports you can do.
I was also a little nervous whether I would last energy wise but the secret was cat naps. In between we would go back to her apartment and I would take a 30-60 min nap! Probably the cool weather didn't hurt either.
dfroshtnh - Others were out there wind-surfing, paddle-boarding, crewing and sailing - so a huge variety of water sports you can do.
