Boston: The US city full of unexpected surprises

Seeing the Boston Red Sox play at Fenway Park is a bucket list activity for both the sports hardcore and sports indifferent. You certainly don’t have to be a major league baseball fan, or know the difference between a curveball and screwball, to appreciate the locals’ die-hard spirit and get involved in rituals like singing Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ at the top of your lungs during the eighth inning.

All I wanted to do at America's oldest baseball stadium was eat a boiled sausage with a generous smear of yellow mustard. But, just like this season’s poorly performing home team, even the weather wasn’t playing ball. Before I’d even seen a single pitch the heavens opened and the rain cover was being dragged across the field. My hotdog man joined the rest of the crowd sheltering in the underbelly of the ballpark with his wet bag of buns.

At least I'd managed to score obligatory merchandise to look the part and then ironically dance in the rain as ‘It's Raining Men’ played across the sound system. Another upside: no one could see my eyes welling up beneath the plastic poncho.

I’d have to settle with my useless soggy Red Sox hat and the memory of cycling past the Green Monster in crisp autumn daylight two days before. But, as I discovered during a five-night stay in the Massachusetts state capital, this baseball-mad city provides more than one home-run attraction, from Instagram-worthy cultural experiences to pedal-powered adventures and beautiful rooftop dining.

I've been in Boston two days and already a museum with its own Netflix series has been recommended three times.

The world’s highest value art heist went down at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the small hours of March 18, 1990 when 13 priceless works were cut straight from their frames by two people moonlighting as police officers.

Amongst the haul were Rembrandt's only seascape, a rare piece by Dutch painter Vermeer - said to be the most valuable stolen object in the world - plus works by Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet and Govert Flinck. There is a US$10 million reward for information leading to their recovery. The FBI believe the culprits are linked to the mafia.

Today you can walk around three floors of the crime scene and see the empty frame which once held The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.

The space has been left as it was since art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner died in 1924. Gardner donated her home and collection of more than 14,000 paintings and objects “for the education and enjoyment of the public forever,” under one condition: if anything was changed in the galleries, the lot of it would be put up for auction, with the proceeds going to Harvard.

A visit to the palace, a work of art in itself, delivers multiple wow moments. From the ticket desk, you enter the museum into a beautiful Venetian-style courtyard filled with tropical palms, ferns and flowers.

Three levels of themed art rooms overlooking the garden can be explored. It’s here where you’ll see Rembrandt's famous self-portrait on canvas and works by Titian, Michelangelo and Botticelli.

The Raphael Room is another treat for the eyes for its striking red fabric walls filled with works by 15th and 16th century Italian artists. The dark and cavernous Tapestry Room, lined with huge detailed wall hangings, resembles a great hall in a European castle. None of the pieces are labelled, but you take an audio tour around the museum.

The city has no shortage of Instagram-worthy cultural experiences. At the Institute of Contemporary Art on the city’s reclaimed waterfront you have two minutes to take in and snap pictures of Yayoi Kusama’s Love Is Calling, the most immersive and kaleidoscopic of the Japanese artist’s infinity rooms.

The room is filled with illuminated, tentacle-like inflatables covered in the artist’s signature polka dots, with spoken word narration referencing life and death. Mirrors create the illusion of never-ending space.

Ed and Rosie Cardinali have been running their cycleboat tours around Boston harbour long enough to know that most groups will give up pedalling after five minutes in favour of partying.

The long and thin houseboat-style vessel features bicycle seating with pedals around a long central table. Passengers are encouraged to use their muscle power to propel the paddle wheel.

Firing up the outboard motor, former airline pilot Ed confesses that the pedals are more of a novelty and have little to do with the power of the thrusters. Instead, we sit back and pull beverages from the boat’s built-in coolers while our fellow passengers, a group of middle-aged men, keep up the leg work. A seating area at the bow provides a comfortable space to take in the sights of Boston’s harbour and cityscape.

From the historic waterside suburb of Charlestown it’s an effortless 1.5-hour journey floating past the three-masted USS Constitution sailing ship and a WWII destroyer once hit by kamikaze warplanes. We move onward along the waterfront to the Boston Tea Party Museum and back again.

The following day back on dry land it’s time for more proactive pedalling with Urban AdvenTours for a guided cycle adventure through six different Boston neighbourhoods.

We’re sized up for helmets and told that our phones need to stay in the handlebar carrier, as our guide reveals that Boston was once ranked “America’s least safe city for cycling”. It seems Boston has cleaned up its act as a cycling destination as our group of 30 effortlessly pedal down cycle lanes between traffic to join a well-formed bike esplanade along the Charles River.

The ride covers around 20 kilometres of the downtown area. We weave between pedestrians, roll through Boston’s oldest residential neighbourhood past beautiful brownstone buildings, and then skirt along the edge of leafy Boston Common.

You can picture Tony Soprano discussing mob business over the butter chicken at this upscale rooftop restaurant in Newbury. Not the bright orange Indian curry but thick breaded poultry cutlets fried in an unfathomable amount of butter.

A table at modern Italian restaurant Contessa is hot real estate in Boston. Sitting pretty on the top level of the newly refurbished Newbury Hotel, the off-the-moment venue is so popular that it takes at least a month to get a reservation.

It’s easy to see why the in-crowd are obsessed with the joint as soon as you step out of the elevator onto the 17th floor. Interior designer Ken Fulk has gone full-blown maximalism with the fit-out; there isn’t a blank wall in sight. The sophisticated parade of velvet curtains, mosaic checkerboard floors, black and white striped awning, dusty pink banquette seating and marble bar almost steal the show from the sweeping views across Boston Commons and cityscape to the harbour.

Its menu inspired by “grand trattoria cuisine” is suitably extravagant, encouraging an extended dining session over fine wine. There are sharing plates like veal milanese, thinly sliced squash carpaccio, and lobster swimming in spicy tomato sauce over a nest of spaghetti. Get all of the desserts to share if your party size and budget allow.

If you can’t swing one of the toughest tables in town, make a stop at the hotel bar on ground level. The Street Bar is a dimly lit, wood-lined haven where classic cocktails like martinis, old fashioneds and manhattans are shaken and stirred by bartenders in crisp white double-breasted tuxedos. There’s an open fire, shelves lined with books and leather couches worth sinking in to.

Air New Zealand operates three direct flights to New York from Auckland per week with daily connecting flights to Boston. See:

Entry to the is US$20 (NZ$34) for adults and free for under 18s. See:

General Admission to the is US$20 for adults and free for under 18s. See:

’s harbour cruise starts from US$49.95 with room for 26 passengers. Hire the entire boat for US$39.95 per person. See:

’ City View Bike Tour starts from US$60 or US$110 for an e-bike. See:

Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport is a modern hotel only 10 minutes from Logan International Airport. Room rates start from US$199. See:

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