As a graduate student in Boston, I am able to go to the MFA for free at any time. I try to take advantage of this perk at least three or four times a year. I love art museums, and I find they are best enjoyed in increments of 2 to 3 hours. After that, I get tired from all the thinking and standing, but it's a good kind of tired. Despite the number of times I have been to the MFA, I still haven't seen all there is to see. I don't even think I have been in all the rooms. The museum continually has fabulous temporary exhibits, which is where you will see most of the contemporary art. Some of these exhibits are included in admission, while others require an additional fee, sometimes as much as $20. Regular admission is $17.50 as of January 2008. Students, seniors, and youth aged 7-17 can receive discounts. On non-school days, admission for youth is free.

Some highlights of the permanent collection include ancient Egyptian art, Japanese art, and several pieces from Boston's colonial era. Most visitors to the museum seem to particularly enjoy the Impressionist room, which is perhaps what the museum is best known for. However, the museum seems to have at least a few pieces from nearly every major period in art. Some of my personal favorite pieces include Childe Hassam's Boston Common at Twilight, Degas' Dancer sculpture, the Paul Revere silver, everything by Renoir, and the Islamic pottery. As a huge fan of Catalunya in Spain, I also have a special place in my heart for the Catalonian chapel.

Logistically speaking, the collection is situated over two impressive floors, in a neoclassical building with lots of stonework. Several sculptures are also located outside the two main entrances to the museum, and in the summer, visitors can access exterior gardens. There is also a cafe in the museum, though I have never eaten there. There are free coat checks at either entrance where you can store all bags and coats (but not suitcases) while you explore the museum. I have brought my infant son to the museum a few times, and getting around with a stroller or wheelchair is very easy. The staff is very helpful with holding doors, and there is even a room set aside for nursing! However, unless your child is very young and will be asleep most of the time, I wouldn't really recommend taking babies there. The ceilings are high and will amplify any screaming the child decides to do. However, for older kids, the museum has designed educational materials to help them get the most out of the experience.

There is parking for a fee, but I highly recommend taking the E branch of the green line, which has a stop directly outside the museum. (Conveniently, the stop is called Museum of Fine Arts). You can also take the orange line to Ruggles and walk for five minutes. It can be tricky to find if you go that route, but there should be plenty of people at Northeastern University's campus to point you in the right direction.

Overall, if you are at all interested in art, you absolutely cannot miss the MFA while you are visiting Boston. It has one of the largest and most impressive collections in the country.

The Museum of Fine Arts ("MFA") in Boston, founded in 1870, has the second largest museum collection in the Western hemisphere, after the Metropolitan Museum. You can pass a few hours in the MFA, viewing selection collections or one of the touring art shows that come here - or you could easily spend a whole day here, wandering through one fascinating gallery after another. You rarely have to loop back through a gallery unless you choose to.

The MFA has many excellent collections, but its Japanese art is particularly noteworthy: it's the largest collection outside of Japan and includes ceramics, origami, kimonos, prints, statuary, furniture, and more, as well as a Japanese garden which is open from 10am to 4pm from spring through early fall. Other major sections of the museum include American, Indian, Greek, Egyptian, European, and Chinese. As well as being an incredibly popular destination, the MFA also supports an art school.

With such a sizeable collection, my best recommendation is to pick a particular area of the museum that you want to focus on, and go from there. Yes, it would be possible to walk the entire museum in 2-3 hours, but you will not get to see as much - and there are all kinds of interesting items on display. Don't worry if you get lost - guards are available throughout the museum to help you.

Currently, the MFA is undergoing a construction project which will greatly expand the museum's facilities, giving 28% more display space, as well as other functions. The Garden Court is being remade into a year-round usable space, and the new "American Wing" will primarily function as display space for their massive American art collection, as well as creating a much larger space for the Contemporary/Modern art collections.

Can't make it to Boston in person? The MFA has much of its collection online at mfa.org, including the ability to take a virtual tour. You can even listen to samplings from their music collection.

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Getting there:

Limited metered street parking; paid parking lots/garages within 1-2 blocks.

"T" (subway) lines: Green "E" line, Museum of Fine Arts stop (directly across the street). Adults $2/single ride; LinkPass $9 (day) or $15 (week).

Hours: Wed. 10am-9:45pm / Thurs. & Fri. 10am-9:45pm (only West Wing/select galleries open after 4:45pm) / Sat.-Tue. 10am-4:45pm

Closed New Year's Day (Jan. 1), Patriots' Day (3rd Monday in April), Independence Day (July 4), Thanksgiving (4th Thurs. in Nov.) and Christmas Day (Dec. 25).

Ticket costs:

Adults $15
Seniors/Students 18+ $13
Youths 7-17 $6.50*
Youths 6 & under FREE

Admission includes 1 free repeat visit within 10 days. Special exhibitions ticketed separately.

Wednesdays 4pm–9:45pm: General admission free.

*Youths 7–17 are admitted free on weekdays after 3 pm, weekends, and on Public School holidays.

Free tours and gallery talks available; audio tours extra ($5-7). Foreign-language Visitor Guides available in Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian, and Russian.

The Americans in Paris exhibition runs through September 24th, 2006 in the Museum of Fine Art's Gund Gallery. This is a fabulous way to see rare pieces that are traditionally kept in other museum's or owned by private collectors; featuring the artists Mary Cassatt and James Whistler among others.

I must admit, I am not the biggest fan of Impressionist or post-Impressionist painting from Europe in the late 1800s. My mom is a huge fan and a museum member though, so we ended up going to this exhibit upon her last visit to Boston. I was pleasantly surprised by this collection-the masterworks are beautifully displayed within three categories-outdoor spaces, portraits, and paintings which the artists painted once they got back to the United States after obtaining their Paris influences.

Most paintings in this collection were featured in the prestigious "salon" in Paris when they were first publicly debuted. Paintings from the "salon" were thought to be masterpieces in their own right and were snatched up by collectors for lots of money. A far cry from the typical "starving artist", Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent actually lived the life of typical upper-class Parisians; though they were both American by birth.

My absolute favorite painting in this collection is "Madame X" by Sargent. It is amazing what a controversy this painting caused when it first debuted 100 years ago (since it's subject was an American who was thought to have beaten the Parisian women at their own game). There she stands, haughty, beautiful and larger than life. It really is quite a lovely painting to see in person-pictures do not begin to capture Madame's attitude in its entirety.

Also on display are several other very famous works by the artists- "Whistler's Mother" (the woman wearing black in a chair facing left), "Woman in a Pearl Necklace", by Mary Cassatt, and Sargent's interpretation of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. All of these paintings exhibit lovely impressionism and post-impressionism styles and are excellent pieces to examine in detail. Brushstrokes and little things that go unnoticed in prints seem to stand out in the MFA's gallery setting.

Tickets to the exhibition should be purchased ahead of time (either online or by phoning the ticket counter at the MFA). The exhibit typically sells out on busier days and weekends. When you purchase tickets, they give you a specific viewing time to ensure that traffic through the gallery is not too much at any one hour. Tickets are about $23 a person and include general museum admission. An audio tour is also available for $5 a person and is highly recommended.

If you enjoy these kinds of exhibitions at the MFA, you may want to consider becoming a member. Each family membership comes with exhibition tickets for one event during the year. It turns out to be an excellent value, and then you can save on even more museum cost items like the dining and parking.

This place has good share of art work and ancient artifacts. Very good collection of Greek artifacts. You'll notice students doing their homework and projects throughout the place. I was one of them once . . . sigh . . .

"Hey!" you think as you hop off the T at the Museum stop and catch your first glimpse of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, "It's a mini Metropolitan Museum of Art." This assessment actually isn't far off the mark.

The MFA wasn't designed by Richard Morris Hunt, as was the Met, but it has a similarly imposing style (albeit with none of the Met's more baroque decorative flourishes). The MFA's collection, too, has many of the same strengths as the Met's--Classical and Egyptian art and American decorative arts and painting.

Once you enter the building, however, you begin to see where the Met and the MFA differ. Unlike the Met's gigantic entry hall, the MFA's is built on a more modest, human scale. And the MFA has one thing that the Met doesn't--a glorious mural by Boston artist John Singer Sargent. Unfortunately, you can't see most of it at the moment--it's undergoing a full restoration--but when the work is complete, Sargent's masterpiece will shine forth with it's original glory.

Some of the highlights of the MFA's collection include Houdon's bust of Thomas Jefferson, a fine collection of works by Washington Allson, an early American artist (Boston's Allston neighborhood was the home of his studio and still bears his name), John Singelton Copley's famous portrait of Paul Revere, and one of Gilbert Stuart's portraits of George Washington. The MFA also exhibits works by Goya, El Greco, Velasquez, Manet, and Matisse, among others.

My favorite part of the Museum, though, are the period rooms--especially those taken from Oak Hill, the country estate of shipping heiress Elisabeth Derby West and her husband Nathaniel. The rooms are spendidly furnished with the creme de la creme of American Federal furnishings--including items created by John and Thomas Seymour. To see some of the rest of Oak Hill, check out the Stephen Phillips Memorial Trust House museum in Salem.

If you get hungry while perusing the great artworks, head to the basement and the Norma-Jean Calderwood Courtyard Cafe. It has an awesome gourmet salad bar with tempting offerings including grilled eggplant and roasted potatoes. Load up your plate and take it to the cashier--you pay by the ounce. You can also try one of a rotating selection of hot entrees, or grab a piece of pizza. And if the weather's good, you can take your meal outside and eat in in the green and sculpture-filled Calderwood courtyard.

Admission to the MFA is $15/adult, $13 students and seniors, or $6.50 for children. An admission ticket is good for 2 visits in 30 days, so hold on to it and go back to really get your money's worth.