Boston

[mojosmom]

Fantastic trip! Not the least of which was meeting up with fellow Bookcrossers.

I arrived mid-afternoon on Monday. After settling into my hotel, I walked to Copley Square and from there strolled around the Public Gardens and the Common. Before I left home, I had discovered Boston by Foot, and decided to take their tour of Beacon Hill. The docent talked a lot about the architecture, as well as the history, of the area, so I was in my element. I was then ready for dinner and found a nice, relatively casual and not terribly expensive, restaurant on Charles St. Then back to the hotel to rest up for the next day.

My hotel did not have a restaurant, but the concierge recommended a place for breakfast that I had noted during my previous evening's walk. It would come to be my preferred breakfast place; you could see how good and reasonably-priced it was by the crowds. (NOTE! My hotel, the Midtown, had a coffee-maker that used disposable brew baskets! Which meant that the tea didn't come out tasting like coffee. They get many additional points for that!)

I headed over to the Museum of Fine Arts directly after breakfast, as my ticket for the Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese exhibit was for the earliest entry. The show was very well done. It began with Titians, and a few Bellinis, with whom Titian had apprenticed, and then followed him and the others over the years. The rooms were arranged partly chronologically and partly by theme (portraits, mythological nudes, religious scenes, etc.) The arrangements and wall texts did an excellent job showing how the painters differed, and how they developed.

It was nice to see some parents (and grandparents) with youngsters. One man had his son, about four, with him, and was finding things to interest him, pointing out animals in the paintings and the like. "We'll move on to brushstrokes next year", he said! However, the kid was not as patient as his dad, as, after a bit, he announced in a loud and firm voice, "I don't want to see any more pictures!" I always enjoy, too, reading the comment books that often accompany these exhibits. There was a bit of a difference of opinion expressed: "Tintoretto rocks!" was followed by "Titian is the man!" And, of course, there's always someone who doesn't appreciate what they're seeing, as evidenced by one woman's comment, "Why are there so many exposed breasts?" Well, let me see . . . if you are painting Venus, and Danae, and Europa, exposed breasts are only to be expected!

After admiring this show (and releasing The Titian Committee), I went and admired much of the rest of the Museum, particularly the Sargent Gallery, and then had lunch. They have three dining options: fancy white tablecloth restaurant, mid-range restaurant and cafeteria. If you use the cafeteria, you can take your food outside and sit in a lovely courtyard. So I did. Naturally, I browsed the bookstore/gift shop, too. The bookstore is huge! I highly recommend it.

(Lots of photos of the MFA)

That evening, I met up with Bookcrosser Solittletime and her brother. We walked around a bit, stopped for a cold drink at TeaLuxe, the café where I was scheduled to meet other BCers a couple of days later, and then went to a good seafood restaurant for dinner and chat. I noticed a building cater-cornered from TeaLuxe that I was sure was designed by H.H. Richardson. I asked the waitress if she knew what it was, but she didn't. So we walked by it and there was a plaque saying it was the Trinity Church Rectory, but no other info. I have now looked it up and I was right, it was by Richardson. See?



On Wednesday, I took in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Sadly, they don't allow photographs. It's a gorgeous building, rather unprepossessing from the outside (particularly as there is construction going on!), but my immediate, visceral reaction when I walked in was, "I want to live here!" (Particularly if it meant having people like Sargent and Zorn paint my portrait.) I wandered about, soaking it all in, for quite a while, and then took a docent-guided, hour-long tour. I had a Guide to the Collection, which I had picked up at a used book sale quite some time ago, on the off-chance that one day I would go there, and I was very glad that I had it. Although some of the rooms have one-page guides that give some information, they are not in-depth descriptions, and do not cover everything in the collection. The collection is, of course, amazing, as it was all gathered before Italy (or any other country, for that matter) worried about cultural patrimony. Then, too, Gardner had excellent taste.

She was also the one who decided where and how everything would be displayed, and if she hadn't been filthy rich, she could have made a good living as an art installer - she was a genius at installation. She invented a cabinet for displaying prints that is brilliant. It consists of several sets of panels, each four deep, each set hinged on one side, with the framed prints hung on them, rather than the usual way of collectors keeping them unframed and flat in drawers.

It was sad to see the empty frames in places and the cards saying "stolen". Someday, some evil obsessive art collector will die, and perhaps his heirs will realize that they've inherited stolen property and return everything.

I had hoped to have with me Patricia Vidgerman's The Memory Palace of Isabella Stewart Gardner. I'd put it on hold at my library, but it hadn't come in by the time I left. The day before my flight, I went to the main library because they supposedly had a copy on the shelf, but neither I nor the librarian could find it (and he checked in the back). So I figured that the Museum would have it. Nope, it's out of print. (It arrived at my library yesterday.)

I lunched there, too, in a nice little café. I don't usually drink at lunch, but a) I was on vacation, and b) how could I resist a cocktail called "Madame Gautreau"? It's sparkling wine, grapefruit juice, pineapple juice and grenadine, and has a blush color just like her scandalously rouged ears.

When I was at Copley Square on Monday, I stopped at the BosTix booth (half-price theatre tickets) and noticed a poster for Boston Midsummer Opera's production of Cosi fan Tutte, being directed by Drew Minter, who sings with the Newberry Consort (and you all know I'm a fan of theirs). So after visiting the Gardner, I went to get a ticket and spent my evening with Mozart. It was a fun production, set at a Connecticut country club, and updated with touches such as having the fiancés' pictures on the girls' Blackberries rather than in lockets! The singers were all good, too, particularly Despina and Fiordiligi.

My conference started on Thursday, at the Copley-Westin. Not all the speakers addressed subjects relevant to me, so I did not feel bad about taking a longish lunch. I went to the Boston Public Library, just across the street, because I'd heard they had a good café, and discovered that the interior was even gorgeous-er than the exterior, which I had admired previously. Again, I took my lunch out to a charming courtyard. After lunch, back to the conference, where I released a book.

(Insane number of photos of the Library)

After the last session that day, which ran a bit late (but that was okay because it was very interesting), I went over to TeaLuxe to meet up with gorydetails and other Bookcrossers. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we sat outside and chatted and exchanged books and generally had a good time. Tobysrus got there early to make sure we had a table, and people wandered in one by one. Fortunately, we had a very charming and tolerant waitress!

More seminar on Friday (released another book as I emerged from the subway), and back to the BPL for lunch - and a concert! In that lovely courtyard, every Friday in the summer, they have music, and this day it was a cellist, joined at times by two other cellists, two violinists and a violist. I can't think of a lovelier way to spend a noon hour. Before going back to the seminar, I went over to the Boston Founders' Memorial on the Common, and released The Wordy Shipmates.

That night, I went back to the MFA. Their marketing department is very smart. If you go to the MFA, your ticket gets you back in free within the next ten days. And as it was MFAfriday, I thought it would be a good time to return. On Friday evenings, the galleries are open, and they have music and drinks in the courtyard. This evening, a steel drum band (Pan Groove Steel Orchestra) was playing, and there was also a Puerto Rican dance troupe.

On Saturday, I did some serious tourist stuff. I went back to the BPL for an Art & Architecture tour. Even though I'd seen a lot of it on Thursday, you learn a lot of interesting tidbits from docent-led tours, so that was fun. Then I did parts of the Freedom Trail, mostly churches and burying grounds. These old buryin grounds are fascinating places, with curious epitaphs and gravestone carvings. And, of course, lots of history. Along the way, I released The Dante Club and Coign of Vantage in appropriate places.

Down to the North End, then, for the Festa della Madonna della Cava. Apparently, they have festivals there every summer weekend for some saint or other. I think these are really excuses to eat, drink and make merry, but what's wrong with that? I blessed all the walking I was doing, because it allowed me to have Italian sausage (with onions and peppers, natch) and canoli and gelato with (relative) impunity. Old North Church, the Paul Revere Mall and Copp's Hill Burying Ground are all in the North End, so I checked them all out, too.

I went back the hotel to rest up and sit by the pool for a bit, and then went to Boston Common for a production of The Comedy of Errors by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. I got there about an hour before it started, because I didn't know how large a crowd there would be or what the situation was, and, boy, was I glad I did! Not that there wasn't room, but when I arrived, there were students from the Boston Conservatory on stage, singing opera! Completely unexpected (at least by me). They weren't bad, either. The play was wonderful! The sets and costuming were Miami Beach art deco (Erté's Symphony in Black was there), the acting was great, and they did some marvelously amusing dumb show.

My flight home wasn't until 4:00 Sunday afternoon, so after a substantial breakfast, I did a bit more of the Freedom Trail - the Old State House, the site of the Boston Massacre (which is in the middle of a traffic island), Faneuil Hall. The Holocaust Memorial is right near Faneuil Hall, so I went there, too. Then, having time before I needed to head to the airport, I took a long walk along the Charles River Esplanade. It was truly lovely and peaceful.

The flight home was fine, though we hit some bad weather and had to circle for a while and so were an hour late. But I was home by 9:30 and the cats were happy to see me, and I to see them!