BOSTON:
Random Facts:
• Logan Int’l Airport is 1 hr long bus ride from city, $2 gets you downtown via MBTA subway, MOST SCENCI route is the City Water Taxi which takes you from airport to Central & Long wharves for $10
• Hotel Tax—12.45%
• Restaurant & purchases meals tax—5%
• NO TAX on clothing unless purchase is over $175!!!!!!
• Cheapest places to stay – Boston Int’l Youth Hostel, Days Inn (suburbs)
• Food to try: New England Clam Chowder, Blueberry pancakes, lobster, swordfish, scrod, haddock, ice cream (“Bostonians eat more ice cream, per person, year round, than anyone else in America”)
TRANSPORTATION:
• MBTA Subway & Trolley Buses (aka ‘The Boston “T”)
o Mon-Sat 5am-12:45am, Sun 6am-12:45am
o Weekday service is every 15 min, weekends = less frequent; there are 5 lines
o Admission into subway stations is via turnstiles into which you insert a paper “Charlie” ticket ($2) or a plastic “Charlie” card ($1.70). Day or week-long Link passes ($9/$15) for unlimited travel can be purchased at Downtown Crossing, South Station, Back Bay, Gov’t Center, North Station, and Airport “T” stops.
• FYI: Buses cover more ground than subways but are often crowded and schedules can be hard to obtain.
o Two useful routes for sight-seeing are:> Charlestown-Haymarket (from Haymarket, near Quincy Market, to Bunker Hill) & Harvard-Dudley (from Harvard Sq via Mass Ave, through Back Bay and the South End, to Dudley Sq in Roxbury)
• GREAT WALKING CITY!
PLACES TO GO:
• Fenway Park
• The Gypsy Bar – has Latin night; Roxy in Theatre District has a vast dance floor
• IRISH BARS:
o The Phoenix Landing Bar and Restaurant (512 Mass. Ave, Cambridge/617-576-62600, a mock Irish pub in Central square w/ Celtic and rock performances on weekend nights
o The Buren (247 Elm St, Somerville/617-776-6896) features some of the finest musicians
o smal Druid (1357 Cambridge St, Cambridge/ 497-0965) where, as the evening wears on, crowds of young professionals give way to recent Irish immigrants
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum –Matisse, Titian’s “Rape of Europa”, notable colelction of old masters ww.gardner museum.org
• Museum of Fine Arts—largest art museum in New England www.mfa.org
o Egyptian & Nubian collections unparalleled outside of African and derive from primarily Harvard-led excavations. Features: Egyptian mummies
o Impressionists – “Dance at Bougival” by Renoir, “Waterlilies” by Claude Monet, plus van Gogh, Manet, and Degas!!!
• Cambridge, aka Harvard
o Fogg Art & Busch-Reisinger Museums – BERNINI clay model of an angel, “Skating” by Manet
Closed until 2013 for renovations but some pieces at Sackler Museum
• Black Bay & South End
o Black Bay= one of most exclusive neighborhoods;
o South End= more bohemian, home to many artists, and Boston’s gay community
3rd largest Irish-American community in America
o Trinity Church – architectural masterpeice and one of most important churches in US (a Henry Hobson Richardson’s Romanesque Revival masterpeice) www.trinitychurchboston.org
o Boston Public Library
o
• Chinatown & Theatre District
o 3rd largest (after SanFran & NYC) Chinatown (pop=8,000)
o “Caution should be excercised but moving increasingly upscale”
o Brattle Book shop – 250,00 rare books and magazines
• North End & Waterfront
o Boston’s 1st neighborhood, heavily Italian now
o Paul Revere House & Mall
o St. Stephen’s Church
o Boston Tea Part ships & Museum
o New England Aquarium
o Old N Church- Paul Revere link & Boston’s oldest church www.oldorth.com
o Hanover Street – most Italian st
o Whale Watching ships!
• Old Boston & Fin District
o King’s Chapel & Burying Ground – est. 1688, many important US history figures buried here. www.kings-chapel.org
o South Meeting House (speeches here led to Tea Party!) – reenactments of debates! www.oldsouthmeetinghouse.org
o Old Corner Bookstore – est 1718. People who’ve been here – Harrie Beecher Stowe, Margaret Fuller, Thoreau, Longfellow, Hawthorner, Emerson
o Irish Famine Memorial
o Post Office Square
o Verizon BuildingQuincy Market – Shepherd’s Pie! 10-10M-S, Sun 12-6
o Old State House 9-5pm daily
Site of the Boston Massacre, near Old State House
Dec of Ind read from the balcony here!
• Beacon Hill & West End
o Nichols House Museum
o Beacon Street – urban mansions
o Boston Common & Public Garden
GW statue
o Park Street Church – Sun 8:30,11,4,6
o MA State House – 10am – 3:30pm M-Fri, rez rec’d
• Concord (outside Boston)
o Sleepy Hollow Cemtary –graves of Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, & Ralph Waldo Emerson
EVENTS:
• (2nd Weekend of Sept) Feasts of Saints Comsa & Damiano – East Cambridge – Italian festival w/ parade
• Boston Blues Festival
• Beantown Jazz Festival (with salsa!)
***CITATION*** Eyewitness Travel – Boston ($20.00) and Wikipedia provided this information
