Winter Weekend in Boston

This was my fifth trip to Boston, and with each trip, this historic city grows closer to my heart. The hub of New England is a beautiful place filled with historic buildings and homes, many dating to the colonial period; outstanding museums; great restaurants; stunning parks; and a waterfront that is seeing new life as a prime residential and tourist area. For American history buffs, a visit to Boston is a must; however, if history is not your forte, you’ll still find much to love here. Some of my favorites include:

• Faneuil Hall Marketplace & Quincy Market This redeveloped collection of shops and restaurants occupies the grounds of the historic Quincy Market and the even more historic Faneuil Hall (1742), where leaders of the American Revolution organized the colonists in their quest for independence from their British homeland. The market is a must for its great shops and incredible selection of affordable local eateries. It is my preferred stop for lunch on any trip to Boston.
• The Freedom Trail This 3-mile walking tour, marked by a red line on sidewalks, leads visitors to 16 historic sites and structures in downtown Boston and Charlestown. Most of the sites along the trail are part of the Boston National Historic Park. Must-see sites include the Boston Common, Park St. Church, Granary Burying Ground, King’s Chapel, Old South Meeting House, Old State House, Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere House, Old North Church, Copp’s Hill, and the USS Constitution.
• Boston Common and Public Garden These two historic parks are adjacent to each other in downtown Boston and provide residents and visitors alike with a beautiful setting for a variety of outdoor activities. Other parks not to be missed are the Esplanade along the Charles River and Back Bay Fens.
• Dining Boston is full of outstanding restaurants. If you are a seafood lover, this is a great city for you. From authentic Irish pubs (bearing homage to the city’s Irish heritage) to restaurants serving fresh New England favorites like lobster, clam chowder, and oysters to the great Italian restaurants in the historic North End, it’s not hard to find great dining choices here.
• Walking Boston is full of beautiful neighborhoods and a very compact city. It’s very easy to leave the car behind and enjoy a lovely stroll through the city. And you’ll work off that Boston cream pie you ate the night before.

Quick Tips:

While Boston is not one of the cheapest places to visit in the US, there are a number of ways to save money here. If you are not planning to travel outside the city, skip the rental car and take the T (see below). The Boston City Pass provides up to a 50% savings on the admission to six popular attractions, including the Museum of Science, New England Aquarium, Skywalk Observatory, Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard Museum of Natural History, and JFK Library. If you are planning on visiting at least three or four of these locations, this pass will probably save you some off the individual admission prices. I also prefer to stay downtown, even though it may be more expensive. I’ve found that it is worth the extra money spent on accommodations to have convenient access to the T and be within walking distance of many attractions. Look for weekend specials at some of the business-oriented hotels downtown, where rooms can often be found for 50% off the regular rates. Also, consider traveling off season when rooms are cheaper and the city is less crowded. Finally, don’t forget comfortable walking shoes; you’ll need them here.

Best Way To Get Around:

Boston is a city where I would not recommend renting a car. If you are planning to venture out into the rest of New England (which I highly recommend), plan your stay in Boston at either the very start or very end of your trip, and pick up your car when you leave the city or drop it off as you arrive. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (the "T") operates an excellent system of subways, buses, and commuter rail, making it easy and fast to get around the city. If arriving at Boston’s Logan International Airport, you can take a free shuttle bus from your terminal to the Airport T station, where you can catch a train into downtown. Local one-way fares as of February 2005 are .25. Visitor’s passes are available; however, they are expensive. A 3-day T pass currently runs ; unless you plan on riding the T at least 15 times in three days, it’s not worth it. On this 3-day trip I spent .75 for individual one-way fares and went all over the city. Boston is also very compact and walkable. You will also find taxis very easy to obtain.

Boston is a city where hotels tend to be quite expensive, but with a little research, it’s not hard to find some excellent weekend bargains. Such was the case with my friend and I choosing the Hyatt. On our last trip to Boston, we redeemed some of my frequent-guest points for a room at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport, a great hotel in a less than convenient location. Not wanting to deal with the inconvenience of a shuttle bus between the hotel and Airport T stop again, this time we opted to look for a hotel downtown. That’s when I found the Hyatt Regency and a variety of very reasonable weekend rates. We opted for a special on a business class room that included breakfast for up to two adults each morning.

The Hyatt has recently undergone a renovation and looks practically brand-new. In its former life, the hotel operated as the Boston Swisshotel. Since being re-branded as a Hyatt, the hotel’s level of luxury has been scaled down – amenities such as the 19th-floor concierge lounge are a thing of the past – but the hotel still offers upscale accommodations in a location that is hard to beat. The hotel is located near the bustling Downtown Crossing shopping district, home to such department stores as Filene’s and Macy’s, and the city’s theater district. It is also just a few blocks from the Boston Common and Public Garden and an easy walk from four T stations (Downtown Crossing, Chinatown, Park St., and Boylston) and from many major historic sites.

Our 20th-floor room featured a great view facing the Boston Common, Massachusetts Statehouse, and Beacon Hill. Compared to other Boston hotel rooms I have had, the room was fairly large, with plenty of space for two double beds, a desk, and an armchair with a small side table. Our executive-level room also included two terrycloth bathrobes and a nightly turndown service with chocolates. Additional amenities included a large bathroom with a marble vanity and tub/shower with wall-mounted shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner dispensers. The beds were extremely comfortable, featuring down comforters, plenty of pillows, and feather bed mattress toppers. Also included with our stay were coupons for the full breakfast buffet for both mornings of our stay, a $64 value.

There were a few minor issues with our stay. Somehow, housekeeping missed servicing our room after our first night. After a call to the front desk, the housekeeping manager called to apologize and ask what time we’d be going out for dinner that evening so that he could send a housekeeper up to service the room while we were out. When we returned from dinner, the room had been made up. Additionally, during our last night, the room’s thermostat jammed, causing the heat to run nonstop for the last few hours of the night. Fortunately, it was cold enough outside that the room did not become unbearably warm before we checked out.

The tiny Salty Dog Bar & Grille is located in the basement level of Quincy Market’s central building. After browsing the crowded food stands featuring every cuisine imaginable in the market’s central building (my first choice for lunch), my friend decided he didn’t feel like dealing with the crowds and shared tables in the market’s central rotunda eating area. So we set out to find a restaurant in the market featuring a variety of lunch specials in a quieter, less busy setting. After reviewing several choices, we settled on Salty Dog.

Descending down the exterior staircase to Salty Dog is somewhat reminiscent of descending into the lower decks of an old ship. The low ceilings were just a mere inch or two above my 6-foot 4-inch frame, and I had to duck to walk under a light fixture. The restaurant’s dining room is separated from its raw bar by the miniscule kitchen, which customers must pass through to access the closet-sized restrooms or the other side of the restaurant. A handful of tables are tightly crammed together in the dimly lit dining room, which is decorated with nautical art.

Our waitress was very cheerful, and despite her dislike of all types of seafood (she did not hide this fact when asked what she recommended on the menu and even laughed at the irony of her working in two seafood restaurants in a row), she was able to point out some of the better choices on the menu. Salty Dog features a basic menu centered around seafood, with some steaks and sandwiches. A wide array of lunch specials is available, most of which are priced below $12 and are of very filling portions. I decided on the lobster sandwich while my friend went for a fried seafood combo platter with clam strips, oysters, and shrimp. Both entrées were served with fresh, crisp french fries and a nice, slightly tart coleslaw made the way I prefer it, with a vinegar-based dressing instead of a mayonnaise-based one. My sandwich featured a generous serving of fresh chilled lobster meat dressed with a flavorful light dressing and crisp lettuce and tomato, all served on a fresh toasted roll. My friend’s entrée was also very good, and he commented that the fried seafood all tasted very fresh.

Salty Dog is certainly not the fanciest seafood restaurant in Quincy Market, nor is it a place I would want to visit when it is very busy. The restaurant is just a little too cramped to handle a crowd of more than 25 customers in the dining room at once. However, for a fast, fresh, and tasty seafood lunch served by a friendly staff, it’s a good choice. I would definitely choose it again on a future visit.

Normally when on vacation, I will not eat at chain restaurants. However, McCormick & Schmick’s is one chain I have no problem breaking this rule for. Each location features a unique menu that changes twice daily, depending on what fresh seafood is available on that day to the chef at that location. As a result, no two visits to the restaurant are exactly the same, and while some menu items are available at most locations, the majority of the menu is unique to the location and day that you visit.

We chose to eat at McCormick & Schmick’s in part because I had a $20 gift certificate I received as a loyalty gift from Alaska Airlines that was expiring March 1. We took a chance by visiting the busy Faneuil Hall location on a Saturday night without a reservation; fortunately, the wait for a table was less than 10 minutes. After being seated at a nice upstairs corner table with a window and view of the marketplace below, we began to look over the day’s menu. It was hard to choose among the many excellent choices, but I finally settled on the sautéed Rhode Island scallops, while my friend ordered a broiled seafood combo platter that featured salmon, shrimp, scallops, and oysters. Both of us also chose to start our meal with a cup of New England clam chowder, which was absolutely delicious and filled with chunks of fresh clam meat. My entrée, the sautéed Rhode Island scallops, was equally as good, featuring about a half dozen large scallops sautéed in a wine sauce with bacon, onions, garlic, and other ingredients. The scallops were perfectly cooked to a tender, yet not tough, consistency, and the flavor of the sauce and seasonings complemented the mild flavor of the seafood perfectly. Accompanying the entrée were sides of rice and grilled asparagus, both of which were very good. Following our entrées, we completed the meal with desserts. I chose the caramel apple pie, a delicious apple pie with a walnut crust served with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream and topped with caramel sauce. My friend chose a huge ice cream sundae.

The food on this trip to McCormick & Schmick’s was up to the company’s high standards. However, our waiter left a lot to be desired. We were seated for nearly 10 minutes before he greeted us and took our drink orders. It was another 10 minutes before he returned with our drinks to take the food order. After our food arrived, he was very slow to refill drinks, and when we ordered dessert, he forgot to bring my coffee. Most of the time he was nowhere to be found, while my wine and water glasses both sat empty for most of the meal. It’s a shame that the service was so poor, as it definitely detracted from what was an otherwise outstanding dining experience. Fortunately, I know from previous visits that this is not usually the case at McCormick & Schmick’s.

The Common is the nation’s oldest public park and was established in 1634. During it’s nearly 400-year history, this 50-acre green space in downtown Boston has been the site of concerts, military training exercises, concerts, protests, outdoor recreation, picnics, and the city’s first public water system. It also sits above the nation’s first subway tunnel, which is still in use along Tremont Street between the Park and Boylston Streets T stations. There are also several historic sites within the park, including the Great Elm where hangings once took place, and the Central Burying Ground, where many British and American casualties of the Battle of Bunker Hill were laid to rest. A number of military memorials are also scattered throughout the Common.

Visitors to The Common today will find a beautiful park that’s open all year to a variety of activities. In the winter, the park is a popular site for ice skating on the frozen Frog Pond and sledding on the snowy Flagstaff Hill. Summers are filled with kids splashing on the banks of the Frog Pond, free Shakespeare plays staged in the Parkman Bandstand, concerts, recreational sports, and other activities. Year-round, a collection of street vendors and colorful characters preaching their random thoughts from a soapbox can be found near the Park Street T station entrances in the Common’s northeast corner.

The Common’s central location also makes it, and the adjacent Public Garden, the centerpiece of a variety of must-see sites. Surrounding the Common are the Massachusetts State House; Park St. Church; Old Granary Burying Ground; and the beautiful, upscale, and historic Beacon Hill neighborhood. You’ll also find the Downtown Crossing shopping district, theater district, Back Bay, and Newberry Street shopping area within a few blocks of the parks.

Nearly 200 years younger than its next-door neighbor the Common, the Public Garden traces it origin to the filling in of salty marshlands along the Charles River in the 1830s. Charles Street, which today separates the Garden from the less formal Common, once ran along the bank of the river. After the area where the Garden now sits was filled in, George F. Meacham’s design for an English-style garden was chosen by the city in 1869. The Garden’s central lagoon, where the famous swan boats offer visitors rides in the late spring, summer, and early fall, and whimsical suspension bridge provide the Garden with a focal point. Surrounding the lagoon, visitors will find immaculately landscaped flower gardens in the spring and summer and many unique trees selected by Meacham to complete the garden’s atmosphere.

While I love the Common across the street and nearby Esplanade on the Charles River, the Public Garden is my favorite park in the city. The lagoon, statues, and uniquely shaped trees all create a beautiful environment no matter the season. In the spring and summer, color flower gardens surround the lagoon. In fall, the color moves skyward as trees in the Garden display hues of red, yellow, and orange. Even in the dead of winter the Garden is alive, as a pristine layer of white snow covers the ground and icicles hang from the statues and fountains. A small section of the lagoon is kept clear of ice for the benefit of the resident bird population, which still begs visitors for morsels of bread and other treats in the winter just as they do in the summer. I could sit for hours on a bench next to the lagoon here and watch people and nature interact. The Public Garden really is an urban oasis, and a part of the city that should not be missed.