Even better - check it also in the morning before you leave - that is a great promotion ! certainly worth using - or maybe if it is a great day, you can go and get your tix and do something else for awhile - or enjoy the museum, lunch and then go to the special exhibit !

Let us know how you make out with the T/parking and the exhibit -

Years ago when I lived in Boston, I used to park my car in a residential lneighborhood in Chestnut Hill and take the T in. They may have changed the parking situation since then but you could consider that.

ncounty:

That'd be a calculated risk these days. Much of Chestnut Hill is within Brookline city limits, and Brookline technically has 2-hour limit on street parking. Enforcement of this is more lax on Saturdays than weekdays, but... residents of streets where this is abused sometimes ask the police to enforce this.

Yikes, Ralphie....good to know. I figured those laws would have changed by now! Gotta fill those coffers; no loopholes anymore.

Brookline has gotten even more efficient the last couple of years about enforcing those parking rules around Fenway on Game Day. Of course, the $20 parking ticket is still less expensive than the parking lots

If all you get is a parking ticket and not the boot or worse, towed.....
my husband was towed just a few months ago b/c he was adamant about he could park somewhere and I was adamant he could not and he took the risk and returned to no car.....

I was a nice wife though and gave him a ride to the tow lot over near South Bay and didn't laugh or say I told you so....I just smiled and whistled a lot

good going, escargot! that must have taken restraint....I would have definitely said something in my twenties but am much better about that nowadays.

Thanks again for all your help. So this is what happened this past weekend:

Saturday - we got to Riverside station around 9am. The place is empty. There is a manned booth which collects $ for parking ($3.75). T to Fenway took about 30 minutes and we walked to the MFA. Since weather was horrible that day, we went home after lunch time. The lot was full when we got back (~2pm) - I suspect many parked there for the evening baseball game?

Sunday - we went to Riverside again because the Walk for Hunger route goes to Newton Corner and we wanted to avoid the road closings etc. We arrived around 1:30p and parked in the last available spot. The Red Sox was playing an afternoon game (started at 1:35p) so I wonder if that was the reason the lot was full.

Anyway, the parking at Woodland station is a covered garage and costs $4. Also has a manned-booth.

The next stop is Waban which has fewer spots - open lot and you just put $ in the box.

yk - what a tease ! How did you like the exhibit? What did you do on Sunday? don't leave us hanging

Hi escargot -

Wasn't sure if anyone would be interested to hear what I have to say about the exhibit... After all, I asked about the parking situation and that's what I reported back.

Anyway, I enjoyed the show. I actually have seen most of the (famous) paintings before - at London's national gallery, Met in NYC, Prado etc. but it's nice how they put the show together and I had a better appreciation of the art in respect to history. I was surprised how many people were there at opening on Saturday - must have been over 100 people waiting for the doors to open. But once inside, it wasn't that crowded at all, so we were glad we went thru the trouble to go so early in the morning. BTW, the Bank of America promotion doesn't work for the special exhibit. One can get general admission for free w/BoA card but they still insist on $23 for the exhibition ticket. DH & I have membership from Dallas Museum of Art so our general admission was free, and we paid $6 each for the exhibition supplement.

On sunday, we went to the matinee show for the Boston lyric Opera at the Shubert Theater. We would have driven into town if it weren't the Walk for Hunger event.

Wonderful!

I told my kids about the Bank of America promo, that is what they have for charge card and I know they are guilty of now reading the 'what comes with my card' things - still young and learning - but they are both museum goers and one is soon to lose his college ID benefits when he graduates -
so they appreciated the tip !

Between our MET and MFA memberships, we often get reciprocal benefits but I also appreciated knowing about it for us as well as family/friends -

Glad it all worked out!

Addendum

This past weekend, we needed to park overnight along the Green Line. After some investigation, I found out that only the Woodland Station Garage allows overnight parking (the other stations are open lots).

We parked there for almost 4 full days (arr Thurs 7am; dep Sun 11pm) and it cost only $19 for the whole period.

That's good information about the woodland garage. It used to be an open lot also...a lot of people probably didn't know it was such a good deal (I know I didn't)

Just for completeness-sake, for the July 4th weekend, we parked at the Red Line Alewife garage for 2 overnights. Alewife charges $5/day.

Although the Woodland stop is closer to us, we are tired of the spotty Green D line service on Sundays (that's when we usually return home). That time in June when we parked at Woodland, from the time the plane arrived at Logan to the time we got to our car at Woodland, it took almost 2 hours!

However, the Red Line option may not work well for the next couple of months as they're stopping service over Longfellow Bridge (bussing pax between MIT and MGH).