OT ~ Boston -Things NOT To Miss

thirdeye

I'm going to be in Boston the end of April and I'm starting a list of places to visit and of course, restaurants/bars....Any advice is appreciated.

PS, I love seafood, so that is a priority.

I'll be staying at the Fairmont at Copley Plaza, which looks to be pretty centrally located.

Unknown

quick! Calling stike, Flashback, EssexCounty and Fishless!! Let's get on the stick guys.

The Freedom Trail and Fanuiel hall market. Did it for the first time a year ago. Going to do it again this year I hope.

Old Ironsides over at the old Charlestown Navy Yard. Awesome! Freeking Awesome! I never tire of looking at that great ship.

Stay away from Legal Seafood their food is marginal at best.

There's a couple of great clam shacks over on the north shore we should try to get you to. I can't remember their names but stike will.

There's always Freds Franks! Can't forget the guy that cooks on The Egg!

I'm not sure when the swan boats start their season but, if they're out a ride on them is "Boston".

Hopefully the Eggies from the north shore will chime in here. If not I'll light their fire!

Semolina Pilchard

If you are a history buff The Old North Church is a must see. Fenway Park is open for tours (at least it used to be). Many wonderful historic sites to see, and many great museums.

"Sparky"

Hey thirdeye,I agree with Sundown,ya gotta see "Old Ironsides".It is amazing :woohoo: If you've got time,take a ferry ride to Nantucket I really enjoyed the island the last time I was there,even though I was only there for a few hours :pinch: It's just beautiful there

Unknown

Here's a couple of links that may help start you thinking.

http://www.northofboston.org/index.php

http://www.massvacation.com/rtc/boston.php

http://www.massvacation.com/southBoston/

http://www.massvacation.com/capeCod/

These will give you a starting point of places to visit.

How long will you be here?

[Deleted User]

What are the dates you'll be here, are you here for business or vacation and will you have a car or are you depending on public transpo?

Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard are nice but I don't think there's a ferry from Boston- though there was a ferry to Provincetown which is the very tip of the curleyQue at the end of Cape Cod.

Maybe we could meet you and bring the Mini :laugh:
I was going to try to get Max some good Linguica and Chorizo when he comes back around that time, so I could get some more for you to bring back too.

Stike and I worked for years in the part of town where you are staying. I used to walk by your hotel every day on the way to work.

Unknown

I was going to try to get Max some good Linguica and Chorizo

Bob, we already did that. We, you, me and stike packed a soft cooker for him that included Pearls and Gaspars Linguica and Chorizo. You'll get your part of the bill.

thirdeye

What are the dates you'll be here, are you here for business or vacation and will you have a car or are you depending on public transpo?

Arriving late on the 29th, returning on Saturday the 2nd of May. Mrs ~t~ is there for a conference. Her days will be from 7 to 4. I'm just there as her sidekick, so will have daytime for exploring on Thursday and Friday.

Hadn't thought about getting a car, but I'm not much of a hand in traffic.

Semolina Pilchard

Take the cab or the subway, traffic is a little rough, and parking is horrendous.

Little Chef

Thirdeye - Please email me with the exact dates of travel....I can probably get your room rate reduced. I am a Fairmont employee...can probably get you 25-40% discount in our "friends and family" program, if you are interested. Will provide you with my input of places to see later, as Boston is where I grew up. Fixing dinner right now. Let me know if you are interested in the offer.

Fidel

When are you going to be there? I am going to be staying in the Copley Square area the 28th to the 30th.

Buxwheat

In the North End:

Pizzeria Regina
11 Thacher St
Boston, MA 02113
(617) 227-0765

Then for a cannoli over at:

Modern Pastry
257 Hanover St
Boston, MA 02113
(617) 523-3783

You pretty much can't sling a dead cat and not hit a good Italian restaurant in this little bit of Dego Heaven.

thirdeye

We're arriving the Wednesday the 29th, and leaving Saturday the 2nd of May.

Smokin Tiger

I really like this place for Italian in Boston. It is very close to Paul Revere's House.

http://www.ristorantelimoncello.com/

CPB

La Cantina Italiana is our favorite, on Hannover, followed up with a trip to Mike's Pastries just down the block.

Legal Sea Food is actually quite good, but NoName restaurant is supposed to be very good, have never made it. The Duck tour is very touristy but quite good to get a great tour of the city. Fenway tour is great.

Ed on Cape Cod

One of those clam shacks has to be Woodmans in Essex (http://www.woodmans.com/). If you want ribs, etc. try Redbones (http://www.redbones.com/) in Sommerville. I also like a little hole in the wall place, Taqueria la Mexicana in Union Square, Sommerville.

For alternative sightseeing, check out Bizarro Boston (http://www.boston-online.com/bizarro/index.html) or MOBA (http://www.museumofbadart.org/)


Hope this helps

Grumps

Mike's Pastries was probably my favorite when I visited a couple of years ago. If you are a laid back southerner like me it is hilarious, because everyone in there seems rude, but it is just the way things are there, kind of like the Soup Nazi on "Seinfield". The desserts are awesome though. It is on the North side near the Old North Church/Paul Reveres House. There are tons of great Italian restaurants in that area. Fenway Park is a must see if you are a baseball fan at all. Locals all trash Legal Seafood but I liked it, the Clam Chowder is as good as I've ever had, but I did not know the local spots, so maybe they are much better. If one of the Boston eggers can give you some favorites of the locals I would recommend it. We went to some places that I can't remember that were awesome ..recommended by some local buddies. Be sure to see the big park, I can't remember the name but it is famous...it was very nice.

stike

sounds like you'll have some time to yourself? dunno if you are the type, but there are some cool museums you can hit for an hour or three without feeling like you ran through the louvre. Museum of Fine Arts is highbrow, but you could hit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Fantastic Venetian Palace built in the Fenway area. You might remember the name from the news of the heist that occurred, when some works by Rembrandt, Degas, etc. were swiped fairly easily. the frames hang empty to this day. She was a fabulous, scandalous old broad. Copley painted here in a plunging neckline, which sent the Brahmin Boston uptight old farts into a tizzy. She had cash and knew how to have fun, back when you were supposed to do anything BUT with your family money. Great house, and the empty hanging frames and the heist's details are enough to inject a little extra into the visit, so that it's not simply "walking through a museum".

Ironsides is great if you are into history. here's the thing about Boston. You can walk the ENTIRE length of the city in about 20 minutes to half an hour. It's a small colonial city.

Hit the Bell in Hand pub as you head toward the (required tourist destination of) Faneuil Hall. Bel in hand was running as a pub before the revolution. Twenty yards away is the haymarket, an open air market of fruit, meat, etc.. It's open friday and Saturday during the day. been there longer than anyone can remember.

since the big dig, you can walk easily right across to the north end, where there's great food. look for a line if it's dinner time. big easy-to-find restaurants with a line are a good bet. small, out of the way restaurants that STILL have a line are better. italian food of course, except Neptune Oyster Bar. great great great fresh oysters. last time i was there they had 18 or so varieties.

you could wander over a little more north in the north end and see the old south church and paulie revere's house. they'll be swamped with tourists, but hey, what can you do.

newbury street has some interesting shopping. the chains have infiltrated, unfortunately. but if it's a nice spring day, the women will be out in droves for the first time without heavy winter clothes on. this would be enough to get us to sit outside for "lunch" (noon til 4:30 or so) at Joe's American Bar and Grille. It is a craptastic bar with nothing to recommend it other than the sunken outside sunny dining area, for people (read: girl) watching.

A couple streets over is Copley Square. Richardson's Trinity Church sits smack dab in the middle under the (recently sold for half price )John Hancock Tower. The New Old South Church is on the corner, and the Boston Public Library faces Trinity. Go in and look around all three. An hour, maybe hour and a half tops if you just nose around.

a long walk up commowealth ave, from the far end (Mass Ave end) of newbury street, while buzzed on beer from watching women at Joe's) would be the best way to get to the public garden and boston common in the shadow of the gold-domed statehouse. the common is where we kept the cows. The famous "Cheers" bar is here (formerly the Bull and Finch). I have never met anyone that was a native who ever went there after they changed the name. It is filled with tourists. If you feel you must, go in and have a beer, buy a shirt, and see if they hired Eddie Doyle back. He got laid off after 30 years. Do not wear the t-shirt until you get home...

The Brattle Bookshop is on West Street. nice shop of old used books, some rare on the upper floor. All broken out into categories (sorta). The Commonwealth Bookshop is on Tremont just along side the Common. older rare books. Dunno if that's your deal or not.

Also around here is the old burying ground, near Park Street Church, where Sam Adams, the victims of the Boston Massacre (in a common grave) and a few other notables are buried, along with some great 17th century tombstones carved with skulls and crossbones. This isn't to far from the Old Statehouse and the scene of the Boston Massacre.

You could huff it over to Charlestown to see the Bunker Hill monument, which of course memorialize the Battle of, well, Breed's Hill. So we got t Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill confused at the time. It was noisy, lots of smoke, cannons, etc. You will forgive us. A pyrrhic virtory for the redcoats (don't refer to them as "the British". we were all british at the time!) Not much there from the period other than some old houses. No Battlefield History Center or anything. It's all built over. Better to look at the monument from the North End than to make the trek just to say you did it. of course, if you go across to see Ironsides, you'll be nearby then.

Fenway is cool to see if you are a fan. The old Boston Garden has been replaced with a sh!t-box of a building. Don't bother seeking a tour of the hallowed stomping grounds of the Celtics and Bruins. It's gone.

email me offline if you have any questions....
J

Boogie

I agree with the stop at Mike's and any Italian on this end. We got in on a Wednesday night and walked over to the North End (I think) and found there were about 20 Italian places in about 3 blocks. They were all pretty empty but we picked one and if that place was in AZ it there would be a line out the door constantly. We then stopped by Mike's before getting back on the T and got a box full of canollis (sp), cookies, etc and it was less than 10 bucks. In AZ it would have been $20. And try to get over to Fenway, if not for a game at least to look around. And the bar across the street has some good beers served with fresh fruit. Try the watermelon or berry. Weird but good. I think it was called Beerworks or something like that.

stike

boston beerworks.

great beer.

the blueberry beer was made for women, but there are so many tourists that drink it, it literally pays the overhead. it used to be seasonal, but they brew it all year for the ladies and some of the guys :cheer:

seriously, though. i used to work right above the beerworks on canal street and the manager admitted that the blueberry beer pays for the place, so it';s no longer a summer beer.

the best beers are their pale ales, IPAs, etc.

[Deleted User]

When we worked upstairs I got Too much in the habit of having lunch there! I enjoyed pretty much everything I ever ordered there. ...and of course there is the beer...

stike

you think you got in that habit too much? i went EVERY day with Hill-man. no exaggeration, one of the contributing factors for my leaving the office was fear that i was going to become a 300 pound alcoholic. three or four 22ox beers EVERY DAY for lunch, then going back to work... not a good thing.

seriously...

PigsEye

For transportation, the T. You don't need a car. http://www.mbta.com/

Historically, check the sites along the Freedom Trail, even if you don't follow the whole thing. Also, check out the Black Heritage Trail. If you've seen the movie Glory, those guys were a Massachusetts regiment trained in Boston and are included.

Check out the USS Constitution.

Legal Seafoods.

Boston Public library.

Boston Commons. Bull and Finch (Cheers) is right close by. Tourist trap, but you've got to do it.

J.P. Licks

Start/finish line for Boston Marathon.

Charlie's in the South End for breakfast.

Ida's in the North End for Italian. Call ahead or get there early. Probably seats 30 people at the max. While you're in North End, hit Modern Pastry for canoli and Mike's Pastries for Marzapan.

Granary Cemetary.

Wander around Bunker Hill area. A lot of this stuff is close together. In a quick 2 or 3 hours, you could get in Bunker Hill, Boston Commons and Bull and Finch.

If you have extra time, the Sam Adams brewery is ok, but not a must do.

Newbury Street for shopping.

Cambridge/Harvard

There's a theatre ticket turnback kiosk in Copley Square, on the corner across the street from the public library and in front of the Old South Church. Tickets about 1/2 price. Copley Square is a good people watching area and Old South Church is a good photograph. There's a T station right there, you're also, I think, 2 blocks from Newbury St. and one T stop from Fenway Park. On the opposite side of Old South Church from the library, there used to be a restaurant called Skipjacks. Good stuff. Locals. The patrons and employees were so nice there, I drank for free, ate free and got invited to go fishing off the coast.

Fenway Park. As much of a baseball fan as you are, buy the good tickets. May be your only time there.

There used to be some neat dance clubs down the alley behind Fenway, don't know what it's like now. There's a really good hamburger joint across the street.

I have to say, Boston is my favorite city. The people there are some of the nicest you will meet. One of my favorite single nights was in Boston, hung out with an ex-stripper turned bartender originally from Dallas and some gay guy friend of hers. Went drinking, clubbing, then to a private restaurant that didn't start serving until 1a.m. No hijinks. Great people, food, transportation, history, sports.