We arrived in Boston on an unusually cold, rainy, late March day. We parked the car and walked to our hotel, the Nine Zero. The hotel has a cool vibe to it. The furnishings are modern.. not sterile, but actually inviting. The staff was very friendly while checking us in and helped us figure out our walk to the restaurant we had booked for the night.

Although it was still rainy and cold outside, we decided to take a walk on the Freedom Trail, which is marked by a red line on the sidewalk. We walked for about 10 minutes when the rain and cold got to us and we had to return back to the hotel. We napped for a while in our comfortable room before getting ready for dinner. Dinner that night was at Meritage, one of the top rated restaurants in the city.

Meritage is right on the waterfront and has a view of Boston Harbor throughout the restaurant. The menu is split up by wine pairing rather than food category. So a fish entree, for example, is in the light whites section. The menu selection was quite extensive and it took us about 20 minutes just to decide what to order. We ended up going with 3 appetizer-sized dishes each and two half bottles of wine (one white, one red).

The food was good. One of the plates I had was excellent. It was venison wrapped with prosciutto, swiss chard and lentils in a wine reduction sauce. That dish is one of the best venison dishes I’ve ever had. The meal ended up costing a lot of money and we decided afterwards that it was not worth the money.

The following day we took the T to Cambridge to have breakfast at Oxford Spa, a local deli that serves gluten free menu items. T has Celiac disease, so she was very happy to eat a gluten free egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich. They also had gluten free carrot cake muffins which we took to go and ate later in the day. After breakfast we enjoyed a walk around the Harvard campus (also called Harvard Yard).

After walking around Harvard square for a bit, we took the metro back to the city to meet up with some relatives who live in the area. We strolled through Faneuil Hall, otherwise known as Quincy Market. It was kind of touristy but is a must on a visit to Boston. The four of us had lunch at the Union Oyster House which claims to be the oldest restaurant in the country. Lunch consisted of mainly seafood and was quite tasty.

After lunch, our cousins drove us across the river to Charlestown. The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned ship afloat in the world. You can walk aboard the ship after going through a military security checkpoint. We were told that people are allowed below deck but that day it was not a possibility. The museum next to the ship was informative and entertaining.

We followed the Freedom Trail from the naval yard back to the hotel. The path leads through North End, an Italian neighborhood full of Italian restaurants and bakeries. The path also leads through Paul Revere’s house, some churches, and other historical landmarks. Although there are lots of buildings to actually enter, we chose not to. The windy, cold walk tired us out. Note to self: go to Boston when it is warmer.

After warming up at the hotel we took a cold walk to Hammersley’s Bistro, a South End restaurant known for its roast chicken. I do not normally order chicken at a higher end restaurant since I can make it easily at home. Although online reviews of poeple with the same opinion suggested ordering the chicken anyway, we chose other entrees. The food was delicious and the portions were generous. Too much so, actually, and we took a lot of our food home. I ate the duck confit and the Cassoulet. Both were amazingly good. T’s meal was not as good but still enjoyable.

Sunday, after checking out of the hotel, we grabbed a quick breakfast at Quincy Market and then headed over to the New England Aquarium. We were disappointed to discover that the penguin exhibit was under construction. The penguins could still be seen, but only through windows into a small room in the back.

The first exhibit we saw was about Jellyfish. In a few tanks, the jellyfish were swimming around in front of brightly lit colored walls. This enabled us to see their anatomy pretty clearly. Afterwards we both agreed that the jellyfish were the best part of the aquarium.

In the center of the aquarium lies a huge multi-storied fish tank. The exhibits are laid out on level around the tank. Inside the tank we saw sharks, turtles, rays, and other assorted interesting looking fish. We had a great time looking at all the animals in the exhibits as well as reading up on some interesting facts about them.

The aquarium was packed with kids and strollers. At some points we encountered traffic jams that we had to maneuver around. Overall we spent about 2 and a half hours there and would highly recommend it to anyone young or old.

After the aquarium we walked across the river to the MIT campus. We were hoping to find something for lunch as well as some interesting architecture promised by the travel books. Unfortunately it seems that MIT is dead on Sundays. We did see some interesting buildings, including the Stata Center which was designed by Frank Gehry. It reminded us of Barcelona.

Being that we were starving and could not find somewhere to ear, we took the T back to town. After getting lost, we finally found a pub that looked acceptable for lunch (the Hub Pub). Turns out, it was not acceptable at all. The food was terrible and somewhat expensive for burgers and beer. This would be the only place that we would not recommend in Boston.

After our horrible tasting lunch we had a few more sites that we wanted to see before leaving. We walked around Boston Common for a bit. the famous “frog pond” was not filled with water and so missed out on that experience. The walk was kind of boring but it probably would have been better later in the year when things were in bloom.

That concludes our Boston trip. We had fun and would go back again to catch the food, and the sights and sounds of the city. Just walking around was a good time in and of itself.