Guest Author - Rachel Rome www.romearound.com

THE INN AT HARVARD is a terrific place to stay and dine when touring Harvard Yard and Cambridge. Unique activities both in and around Harvard Square, including lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club, museum tours, a Charles Riverboat tours, and dinner at Upstairs on the Square, and a Saturday performance of the avante garde performance of Orpheus X at A.R.T. satellite theatre energized my weekend getaway.

When my pace became too hectic, I relaxed at area spas. Some include Le Pli Salon & Day Spa,5 Bennett St, (617) 547-4081, Pyara Spa and Salon, 104 Mount Auburn St, (617) 497-9300 and Sasha Salon and Spa, 23 Arrow St, (617) 497-2210.

The Inn It’s close to the Red Line T Stop, a block from the Charles River, and within walking distance of museums, shops, funky sidewalk performers (weather permitting), and a vibrant street life, not to mention just across from Harvard University.

Our tour began on Friday night, and we dined in the Atrium restaurant at The Inn at Harvard. Service and food was excellent, four-star. We had filet mignon and an outrageously scrumptious chocolate mouse cake topped with whipped cream. They serve a lovely Sunday brunch, including fresh Nova salmon, eggs and other standard items. We also ate breakfast here, and tea at 3 p.m.

Location is everything, and staying here is a delight because you are smack in the middle of everything, or just a few blocks away. The American Repertory Theater is a few blocks away, and their new off-shoot smaller space, A.R.T., is one f block away. The Yard is across Mass Ave; the Fogg Museum and the Sackler Art Museum, just across Mass Ave and half way up the block.
The FOGG Art Museum is another Harvard University gem, and my favorite art museum in the Boston-Cambridge area for several reasons. One is that the exhibits are chosen, usually, to supplement Harvard art professors’ lectures. The other, is the permanent collection is superb. The Fogg Art Museum, opened to the public in 1895, just outside Harvard Yard, and is Harvard's oldest art museum.

I am always awestruck when I go there because the quality of the permanent and temporary collections is world-class. Incidentally, there is a terrific though small gift shop there. Admission is $7.50, adults.
A HIGHLIGHT WAS Visit to the world renowned Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, founded in 1866, is one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology and houses one of the most comprehensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere. In a room celebrating Northwest Native Peoples tribes, I saw a totem pole carved by my Ketchikan, Alaska carver-friend, Nathan Jackson.

The Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) is the public museum of Harvard University's three natural history institutions: the Harvard University Herbaria, the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the Mineralogical and Geological Museum. Through exhibitions and an array of educational programs, the HMNH presents a historic and interdisciplinary exploration of science and nature, with an emphasis on evolutionary theory. techniques.

We toured Harvard Yard with sophomore Meghan, from the Midwest, who filled our heads with mucho facts (go the Harvard’s website for more info, including the three wrong facts about the John Harvard statue. I remember two – wrong date, wrong poser for the statue –but I do remember how busy the Yard was as students scurried across from one historic building to the next, including Lehman Library. We ended the tour at the Peabody Museum. of Glass Flowers. The famed Peabody Museum, two blocks away from The Inn at Harvard.

We lunched at The Harvard Faculty Club, just across from The Inn.
Later, we hopped a shuttle to the Galleria Mall and canal for a 60 minute narrated boat ride up the Charles River Basin with the Charles River Boat Tour Company. Captain Tom Culbertson told us the history about the bridges spanning the Charles, saw some scullers, early boaters, and passed lovely boathouses along the riverbank.

The Red Line is a block away from the Inn at Harvard, as is the Harvard Newsstand, with its worldwide newspaper selection.. During the spring and summer months, Cambridge, like a little village, hosts events ranging from River fairs to sculling races to picnics to international festivals.