Going to Boston. Need trip advice.

I could think of a lot of nicer places, but since you are going --- Watch Giada's Weekend Getaways | Boston online | Free | Hulu

see the bridge and fanueil hall marketplace, and maybe old ironsides.

 

walk around newberry street. eat at Sonsies.

 

East Coast Grill in Cambridge for a casual, noisy place with good to really good BBQ and very good seafood with a Caribbean twist. (Try an order of guava ketchup with an order of sweet potato fries. Killer!)

Burnt sugar ice cream next door at Chstina's. Sample it first as it seems to crystalize easily.

See if you can sneak in a drive to Marblehead, as it's one of the loveliest towns in the NorthEast. Make sure to stop by Castle Rock for a wonderful view. Keep to steamed seafood like lobster and huge steamers as I've never had anything else that was worthwhile up there. (There are some great driving roads in that area.)

Have fun, enjoy your 10th!

 

For a quick bite on the go, as opposed to the anniversary dinner, I can think about two places that offer world-class food:

James Hook and Co.- Fresh Lobster and Seafood Delivered! and

Sam LaGrassa's World's No.1 Sandwiches, Corporate Catering Menu

 

Newbury street is great, walking up and down there is pretty cool. Sonsie's is great for lunch because you can sit and watch people walk up and down. I used to have lunch there every monday, and brunch on sunday's pretty frequently.

Harvard Sq. is unmissable as well. The Henrietta's Table restaurant at the Charles Hotel in Harvard had great great food, my favorite restaurant in Boston. I used to go there after watching some good jazz at the Regattabar. I'd skip the other restaurant, Rialto. Expensive and not so good. Harvard Square in the summer is one of the best places to be in Boston. If you're a book guy, they have some amazing bookstores there, if you're a cigar guy there's a great cigar shop called Leavitt & Pierce.

Best Ice Cream in Boston is Toscanini's at Central Square, near MIT. You can check out some of the MIT museums around the area.

Fanueil Hall/Government Center/Quincy Market is nice and touristy, but I'd skip it unless you really want to go see the touristy things. There's nothing that interesting there, to me.

Same goes for the "North End" where all the supposedly great Italian restaurants are. Very easy to fall into tourist traps, although if you know what you're doing there really is some amazing food there.

The waterfront is a nice place to go visit too. There's a restaurant called Sam's, on top of the posh clothes store Louis Boston that has a GREAT view of the harbor. Also good to eat lunch at. I used to love the burger there. The Institute of Contemporary Art is close by if you like that kind of stuff.

At night, if you wanna go see some good live music I'd go to the Beehive. It's a nice bar/restaurant with a decent wine list, food, and usually good music.

Any of Barbara Lynch's restaurants is great, even though some of them are quite expensive. She has a bar, too, called "Drink", which is pretty nice.

Other restaurants I enjoyed: Butcher Shop, Stephanie's on Newbury, Petit Robert Bistrô in Kenmore, Eastern Standard at the Hotel Commonwealth, Sel de la Terre, Sportello, Les Zygomates (great live music on saturdays). Max Brenner on Boylston used to serve food till 2 AM which is rare, if you are up for staying up that late. If you're there on sunday night, my friend Brooke Sofferman is playing jazz at the top of the Hub, the last floor at the Prudential building.

If you have time for sports, or just want to take a nice walk, or rent a bike, I highly recommend walking by the Charles River on the esplanade. My usual "loop" would entail starting at the MIT bridge, walking all the way up and across the river to Harvard, and then coming back and crossing the MIT bridge again. When the weather is nice there's nothing like it. My old almost next door neighbor Back Bay Bicycles, on the corner of Mass Ave. and Commonwealth Ave., used to rent bicycles by the day. They also have those hourly rental stations.

Don't miss the public garden if you can, just at the beginning of Newbury, and also the Museum of Fine Art is pretty amazing.

I'll add to this if I can remember more. Shoot me a PM if you want more specific advice. I lived there for 4 years, while I went to college. One of my favorite cities in the world. Wonderful.

 

Check out liberty hotel for late night cocktails.

 

Back Bay Social Club is a great spot

 

remembered some stuff,

I'm the opposite of Mario about Harvard Sq. vs. Faneuil Hall (Quincy) market. They are both shopping/eating centers, but FHM is bigger and nicer imo and I just remembered about the place I used to eat lunch in when I worked on State St. (25 years ago) -- Clarke's, they had these very unique Dublin Fries which were incredible and went great with beer. Lunch at Clarke's after walking around the shops is a must. https://plus.google.com/107966057144756672177/about?gl=us&hl=en

As for Cambridge walk around Hahvahd and then buy some sweatshirts at the Coop. I spent some time there. The football stadium is interesting but probably not if pressed for time.

USS Constitution sets sail again in Boston Harbor - PhotoBlog

 

I knew I was forgetting something. Yes, great place, too, although sometimes full of the rapper types...