Tea for Two: A Boston Romance

Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that New York City is impressive. Often referred to as the “Big Apple,” the “City That Never Sleeps” or the “Capital of the World,” New York is one of the most vibrant urban centers on the planet, and also one of the largest.

When people talk about New York, they typically mean Manhattan, which is but one of five boroughs that make up the city proper, the others being Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. The full metropolitan area, which includes nearby Long Island, Westchester County, and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, has a population upwards of 18 million.

New York draws tourists from around the globe, not only for its rich cultural and historical attractions, but also because it is a major center for media, theater, food, fashion, art, research, finance, trade and nightlife. It also has one of the most famous skylines on earth, dominated by the iconic Empire State Building.

First-time visitors can’t go wrong by hitting the traditional tourist spots: the top of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Greenwich Village and SoHo, Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, Central Park, even Times Square. But those looking for more local, authentic experiences, plan a trip to Brooklyn to check out the Brooklyn Museum, Prospect Park and the Botanical Gardens; Manhattan’s Lower East Side for a taste of old-world immigrant history meets modern-day hipsters and nascent art scene; or Jackson Heights in Queens, for the best Indian and Thai food outside of Asia.

Boston is the largest city in New England, the capital of Massachusetts and one of the most historic cities in the United States. Founded in 1630, Boston was at the center of the American Revolutionary period; the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 were key events leading up to the Revolution in 1775. Today, Boston’s patriotic legacy attracts countless visitors each year. Walk the 2.5-mile Freedom Trail to see historic sites and colonial structures like Boston Common, Park Street Church and the Paul Revere House.

Boston offers dozens of museums, a wealth of historical sites, and several world-class universities and colleges, among them Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston College and the Boston University. More than 16 million tourists visit each year, making it one of the 10 most popular tourist locations in the United States.

Boston is a sports town, and its residents are fiercely loyal fans of its professional teams: the Red Sox (baseball), Celtics (basketball), Bruins (hockey), New England Patriots (football) and New England Revolution (soccer).

Make sure you schedule some time to relax in one of Boston’s many pubs, and sample some fresh seafood, clam chowder or Boston Baked Beans in the city’s restaurants.

InterContinental Boston is a brand new hotel that has ushered a new era of luxury into America's original city. With its elegant, blue glass architecture reflecting the waves of Boston Harbor, InterContinental Boston has become the city's newest landmark. InterContinental Boston's 424 guest rooms and suites offer sweeping views of the waterfront and city skyline, an upscale retreat conveniently located just steps away from attractions such as the North End, Faneuil Hall and the Theater District. The restaurants at InterContinental Boston, with our Brasserie boasting the city's only 24-hour fine dining experience, showcase a bevy of eclectic cocktail and dining options for the epicurean mind.And for those traveling on business, InterContinental Boston offers 32,000 square feet of state-of-art, technologically advanced conference & banquet facilities. InterContinental Boston is sure to become Boston's premier Meeting & Social Event Destination.

Inside The The Langham, Boston, Café Fleuri features creative Mediterranean cuisine in a dramatic restaurant. Located beneath a magnificent six-story glass atrium, Café Fleuri is the perfect restaurant to enjoy breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner, seven days a week. An open kitchen, complete with brick oven, allows diners a glimpse of culinary creativity firsthand. Café Fleuri features an award-winning Sunday Jazz Brunch featuring nine tables of palate pleasing sensations alongside a jazz trio. Indulge your sinful side at Café Fleuri's world renowned Saturday Chocolate Bar (seasonal) buffet, which includes more than 125 chocolate creations.

Beyond the borders of the Back Bay is a friendly neighborhood that features exciting, trendy shops, theaters and restaurants on tree-lined streets of brownstone buildings. Culinary explorers will enjoy eating along popular Tremont Street, and even the tiniest streets of this district are full of cafes and bars. Hammersley's, Aquitaine and Truc all serve French cuisine in elegant surroundings. Head to the Delux Cafe & Lounge for a great atmosphere, lots of locals, and hearty hamburgers and pizza. The forever trendy Club Cafe has a hopping after-work crowd and fun theme nights.

Just across Charles Street from the Boston Common, Public Garden is elegantly landscaped with flower beds, lagoons, walking paths and statues, including a notable monument of George Washington on a horse. You can watch couples posing for their wedding photos every summer weekend. The children's story Make Way for Ducklings took place here, and there is a popular sculpture of the ducklings in the northeast corner of the park. A ride in the famous Swan Boats is an essential experience for any visitor.

Icarus is an elegant South End restaurant with superior food. The chef is co-owner Chris Douglass who has created a top-notch American regional menu that changes seasonally. Some of the recent choices include pepper crusted venison chop and grilled tuna entrees. Pastry chef David Broderick adds a touch of decadence to the place and the wine list here is wonderful. The atmosphere is rich with a two-tier dining room and mission furniture. Live jazz is featured on Friday nights.

Steeped in history, this is one of Boston's most beautiful neighborhoods. Always the home of statesmen, artists and intellectuals, "The Hill" is also the site of the State House, which is the beginning of the Freedom Trail. Cafes and majestic brownstone buildings line the narrow cobblestone streets next to the Boston Common, America's oldest urban park. At the bottom of the hill, along Charles Street, are several antique shops and boutiques full of unusual merchandise. This charming neighborhood has managed to preserve its history without becoming artificially quaint. Another important and most visited feature of Boston is Acorn Street. The street is surrounded by beautiful colonial style houses, giving it an earthy feel, which will import you to the era gone by.

Freedom Trail is a three-mile ribbon of red paint that links 16 historical sites. Most visitors start the trail at the Boston Common. The National Park Service offers 90-minute guided tours starting at the Boston National Historical Park Visitor Center. Maps are also available here. Stops include the Old State House, Faneuil Hall and the Old North Church. You can also discover Paul Revere's house, the site of the Boston Massacre, and the Copp's Hill Burial Ground. At the end of the trail in Charlestown, the Bunker Hill Monument and the U.S.S. Constitution await you.

There are more than 100 places to eat, shop and drink at Faneuil Hall Marketplace also known as Quincy Market. French merchant Peter Faneuil gave the hall that precedes the marketplace to his adopted home of Boston in 1742. It has been called the "Cradle of Liberty" because of the number of revolutionaries and abolitionists who delivered important speeches here. The hall is now a tourist center, but public meeting facilities are still available.

A Boston favorite, L'Espalier serves modern French cuisine with a New England influence. There are two fixed-price menus, a three-course offering and an elaborate seven-course meal. Poached sole, vermont pheasant, and grilled lamb are some of the dishes diners can expect to find on the menu. A third "Chef's Tasting Journey" menu is available for those looking to sample various items while enjoying a glass of wine or a cocktail. Liqueur-drenched desserts and a sumptuous cheese platter make for a fine finish. The elegant Back Bay brownstone is divided into several intimate rooms, perfect for a romantic dinner for two. You can even take part in the Saturday afternoon tea seating.

A trip to Boston is not complete without a visit to this attraction. From mid-April until mid-September, you can take a quick tour on a paddleboat decorated as a swan. These tours have been run by the same family for over a hundred years in the Boston Public Garden, which was the setting for the famous children's story, "Make Way for Ducklings". You will understand why as you glide among the hundreds of ducks that call the Garden pond home. You may see a couple of real swans, too.

Arnold Arboretum, a botanical garden, located in Jamaica Plain, is the crown jewel in Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, which is the chain of Boston parks that he created. The manicured grounds, under the management of Harvard University, are filled with exotic flora that are tagged with species and genus names for the eager amateur botanist. The annual "Lilac Sunday" during the second week of May draws thousands of visitors to enjoy the beauty of over 500 lilac bushes.

This large pond was carved out by glaciers during the last Ice Age. Unusually deep and cold, Jamaica Pond is linked via underground channels to other bodies of water along the Jamaicaway. The park features one path for walkers and runners and another path for cyclists. During the summer months, you can rent a rowboat or sailboat, or you can fish for trout, bass, salmon and perch.

This 12,000 square-foot shopping mall is full of antique dealers and collectors bustling about, buying and selling with reckless abandon. Considering the incredible assortment of antiques and collectibles here, it's no wonder that this market attracts collectors from all over New England and beyond. Over 100 dealers have stalls here, plying estate antiques and much more. You could come a thousand times and still not see everything this mall has to offer.

"Rialto" has been named the top Boston restaurant by "Gourmet Magazine" and Boston's best romantic restaurant by "Boston Magazine." James Beard award-winning chef Jody Adams whips up regional Italian cuisine fused with New England flavors. Seared scallops with potato cake, hazelnuts and cider cream and Braised beef short rib in red wine with gorgonzola-potato fritters are just two of its impressive menu selections. Located in the luxurious Charles Hotel, the decor is sophisticated and rich. The restaurant has a full service bar and is a wonderful place to relax in and chill out.

InterContinental Boston is a brand new hotel that has ushered a new era of luxury into America's original city. With its elegant, blue glass architecture reflecting the waves of Boston Harbor, InterContinental Boston has become the city's newest landmark. InterContinental Boston's 424 guest rooms and suites offer sweeping views of the waterfront and city skyline, an upscale retreat conveniently located just steps away from attractions such as the North End, Faneuil Hall and the Theater District. The restaurants at InterContinental Boston, with our Brasserie boasting the city's only 24-hour fine dining experience, showcase a bevy of eclectic cocktail and dining options for the epicurean mind.And for those traveling on business, InterContinental Boston offers 32,000 square feet of state-of-art, technologically advanced conference & banquet facilities. InterContinental Boston is sure to become Boston's premier Meeting & Social Event Destination.

Boston is the largest city in New England, the capital of Massachusetts and one of the most historic cities in the United States. Founded in 1630, Boston was at the center of the American Revolutionary period; the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 were key events leading up to the Revolution in 1775. Today, Boston’s patriotic legacy attracts countless visitors each year. Walk the 2.5-mile Freedom Trail to see historic sites and colonial structures like Boston Common, Park Street Church and the Paul Revere House.

Boston offers dozens of museums, a wealth of historical sites, and several world-class universities and colleges, among them Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston College and the Boston University. More than 16 million tourists visit each year, making it one of the 10 most popular tourist locations in the United States.

Boston is a sports town, and its residents are fiercely loyal fans of its professional teams: the Red Sox (baseball), Celtics (basketball), Bruins (hockey), New England Patriots (football) and New England Revolution (soccer).

Make sure you schedule some time to relax in one of Boston’s many pubs, and sample some fresh seafood, clam chowder or Boston Baked Beans in the city’s restaurants.

Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that New York City is impressive. Often referred to as the “Big Apple,” the “City That Never Sleeps” or the “Capital of the World,” New York is one of the most vibrant urban centers on the planet, and also one of the largest.

When people talk about New York, they typically mean Manhattan, which is but one of five boroughs that make up the city proper, the others being Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. The full metropolitan area, which includes nearby Long Island, Westchester County, and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, has a population upwards of 18 million.

New York draws tourists from around the globe, not only for its rich cultural and historical attractions, but also because it is a major center for media, theater, food, fashion, art, research, finance, trade and nightlife. It also has one of the most famous skylines on earth, dominated by the iconic Empire State Building.

First-time visitors can’t go wrong by hitting the traditional tourist spots: the top of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Greenwich Village and SoHo, Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, Central Park, even Times Square. But those looking for more local, authentic experiences, plan a trip to Brooklyn to check out the Brooklyn Museum, Prospect Park and the Botanical Gardens; Manhattan’s Lower East Side for a taste of old-world immigrant history meets modern-day hipsters and nascent art scene; or Jackson Heights in Queens, for the best Indian and Thai food outside of Asia.