Boston, Massachusetts
By Andrew Collins

With its tree-lined streets, spectacular gardens, and youthful yet intellectual personality, Boston's an easy city to love in the springtime. Winters last a while in New England's largest metropolis, but by May the sidewalks buzz with pedestrian life and the Charles River fills with kayaks and sailboats. One of the nation's gay-friendliest cities, Boston encompasses a considerable range of charms, from prestigious museums and historic parks to swish cocktail lounges and hipster-infested restaurants. Here's a look at eight different ways to take advantage of Boston's myriad attributes:

1. Have breakfast or brunch in Jamaica Plain.
Once considered an out-of-the-way neighborhood whose shops and restaurants catered chiefly to locals, the lesbian-popular Jamaica Plain neighborhood has grown up in recent years, especially as a culinary destination. It's not far from lovely Back Bay Fens Park and its esteemed art museums, and has several fine restaurants specializing in breakfast or brunch, making it an apt spot to begin your day.

The longtime traditional favorite for breakfast is Sorella's, a small and bustling diner-style cafe that's justly renowned for its omelets stuffed with goat cheese, chorizo, and similarly enticing ingredients. A bit more dapper and elegant inside, the French bistro Bon Savor serves up such delicious breakfast dishes as fried-banana crepes and smoked salmon eggs Benedict. And don't overlook the airy Dogwood Cafe, with its hardwood floors, exposed-brick walls, and creative cuisine. Consider the blueberry buttermilk pancakes or the unusual-sounding but delicious "breakfast pizza" topped with scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, applewood-smoked bacon, home fries, and mozzarella.

2. Wander through Back Bay Fens Park and explore the city's two best art museums.
North of Jamaica Plain and west of downtown Boston is the Fens, an amalgam of relatively modest residential and slightly scruffy industrial blocks and site of the campuses of Northeastern and Boston universities as well as Fenway Park, home to baseball's Boston Red Sox.

The topographical feature that best defines the neighborhood, however, is Back Bay Fens Park, the city's only area of tidal marshlands that was never filled in with gravel as Boston expanded. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted converted this wilderness into a subtly manicured park. On its south side is the Museum of Fine Arts, whose highlights include Asiatic art and French Impressionists. The museum is in the midst of adding a dramatic new wing, slated for completion in 2010. To the west is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a stunning if idiosyncratic collection of paintings, drawings, textiles, and furniture (mostly Western European).

3. Stroll the Boston Common.
The Boston Common has been the city hub since 1630. The side of the park fringed by Boylston and Tremont streets is more commercial than the stretch along stately Beacon Street, but the whole park merits exploration. The adjacent Boston Public Garden, the centerpiece of which is a placid pond traversed in summer by foot pedal-powered swan boats, also contains several acres of formal gardens. Overlooking the Common stands Charles Bulfinch's golden-domed neoclassical State House, where legislation was signed making the Bay State the first (and so far only) one in the Union to legalize same-sex marriage.
Continue to page 2>>>

Page 1 of 3