Boston is more than a great place to soak up history. You can also experience inspiring fine art, contemporary art, beautiful gardens and more.
While in Boston, you need to visit The Museum of Fine Arts. As the 17th largest art museum in the world, it contains over 450,000 works of art. They offer lectures and courses, as well as studio art classes to inspire you.
Isabella Stewart Gardner inherited a large sum of money from her father and began collecting art. When she and her husband decided their collections should be open to a greater audience, they decided to open a museum. They loved Italy, so they engaged an architect to create a unique home. It looks more like a palace, inside and out, and is now the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
The Institute of Contemporary Art is located on the popular Boston waterfront. Founded in 1936 as a sister museum to New York’s MoMA, the ICA champions innovative approaches to art. Since then, they have established a reputation for identifying important new artists.
Boston Public Market is a must visit because everything sold at the market is local to New England. This year-round marketplace features fresh produce, meat & poultry, eggs, seafood, baked goods as well as speciality items. The featured New England artisans are a bonus.
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Housed within Harvard Medical School, you’ll find the Warren Anatomical Museum. This may or may not be your thing. But if it is, you’ll find over 15,000 anatomical and pathological specimens of the human body.
If you are a fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson, then you need to visit Schoolmaster Hill. This is where he lived for two years in a small cabin. Restored as a ruin in the early 1990’s, it is now a part of the Franklin Park Coalition and the Boston Parks Department.
If you happen to visit Boston May through October, take the time to visit Kelleher Rose Garden. In the Back Bay Fens, it contains over 200 varieties of roses.
Metropolitan Waterworks Museum is a place to visit if you are into steampunk, or interested in the inner workings of the large steam engines that supplied Boston with clean drinking water from the late 1880’s through the 1970’s.
Salada Tea Doors are located at 330 Stuart Street. These elaborate doors were installed at the headquarters for the Salada Tea company in 1927. If you happen to be in the Back Bay neighborhood, it’s worth stopping by to see the amazing workmanship on these doors
Boston History Dioramas are an exhibition at the Historic New England. The Boston Society of Natural History commissioned them in 1863, then Sarah Ann Rockwell created them. Look closely at them so you can see the all of the attention to the small details.
If you take a stroll down Winthrop lane in downtown Boston, then you will see the brick sized bronze reliefs that commemorate Boston’s past and present, known as the Boston Bricks.
I always look for something special to bring home from my travels so I can incorporate memories into my creations.
Here are some yarn shops to visit in and around Boston:
And some fabric shops to visit in and around Boston:
And, some bead shops in and around Boston: